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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26577262">i'm still dancing at the end of the day</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/danversdonut/pseuds/danversdonut'>danversdonut</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Glee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Eating Disorders, F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Teen Pregnancy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 11:42:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>51,391</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26577262</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/danversdonut/pseuds/danversdonut</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes Lucy Quinn Fabray twenty-four years to truly work out who she is.<br/>She has a series of moments, a list in her head of all the times she thought she knew, only for that image to be shifted.<br/>Most of the moments she wasn’t aware of at the time - but they had a dramatic effect in shaping who she is.<br/>These moments are told through childhood drawings, adolescent diaries, and teenage poems. They’re told through the words she writes onto paper and the ones that are burned into her brain; a series of rules and standards she holds herself too.<br/>Some of the moments are more significant than others.<br/>But they’re all important.<br/>She hid behind some of these moments for far too long, becoming someone she’s not, only for it to backfire.<br/>She knows the moment she’s finally figured herself out, because it’s the first moment she truly feels happy.<br/>The first moment everything is perfect.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>126</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. if i told you i was terrified for days, thought i was gonna break</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi Everyone,<br/>So I wasn't actually planning on posting this until I had completely finished writing it, however, yesterday I won runner up for best writer in the glee twitter homecoming awards and thought it was only fitting to post something in celebration.<br/>This whole fic is planned out, and I have most of the next chapter written, however, I'm not making any promises about how quickly updates will be posted, I will estimate about two weeks in between each (sorry) and I will try my best to stick to this.<br/>This fic follows Quinn through her life, starting at age five and going through until she's twenty-four. Faberry is endgame, but it will take a while to get there - there's no faberry in this chapter.<br/>Chapter One follows Quinn from age five to age thirteen.<br/>A few things:<br/>Firstly, this fic is not particularly happy in the early chapters - this chapter and the next one, in particular, are quite dark, I will list all the trigger warnings for this chapter at the end of the notes, please read them and don't read the fic if you think this fic will trigger you or harm you in any way, I really don't want to hurt anybody.<br/>With that being said, if you read it and need to talk to anybody my twitter dm's are always open, don't hesitate to reach out (@diannasfvbray).<br/>Second, this is just my interpretation of Quinn, I am not an expert on a lot of the things she goes through so much of this fic is based on research, or in the case of a lot of her mental health issues, my own personal experiences. If you feel something could be changed to fit her character better, let me know I'm open to all suggestions and interpretations of Quinn.<br/>Next, a huge thank you to Charlie (@illicitfabray on twitter and iknowplaces on ao3) for proofreading this and making suggestions, I greatly appreciate it and love you very much.<br/>And finally, the title for this piece comes from the song 'Light On' by Maggie Rogers. I think it encompasses the overall vibes of the fic and of Quinn's character, and I encourage everyone to give it a listen.<br/>I hope you all enjoy xx</p><p>TRIGGER/CONTENT WARNINGS:<br/>- Eating disorders: this is biggest one for this chapter, it's quite in depth and there are some very graphic descriptions of both anorexia and bulimia (including vomit) please please please don't read if this will trigger you.<br/>- Religion.<br/>- Child abuse (both verbal and physical).<br/>- Bullying.<br/>- Homophobia.<br/>- Mentions/references of conversion therapy.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>It takes Lucy Quinn Fabray twenty-four years to truly work out who she is. </p><p>She has a series of moments, a list in her head of all the times she thought she knew, only for that image to be shifted. </p><p>Most of the moments she wasn’t aware of at the time - but they had a dramatic effect in shaping who she is. </p><p>These moments are told through childhood drawings, adolescent diaries, and teenage poems. They’re told through the words she writes onto paper and the ones that are burned into her brain; a series of rules and standards she holds herself too. </p><p>Some of the moments are more significant than others.</p><p>But they’re all important. </p><p>She hid behind some of these moments for far too long, becoming someone she’s not, only for it to backfire. </p><p>She knows the moment she’s finally figured herself out, because it’s the first moment she truly feels happy.</p><p>The first moment everything is perfect.</p><p> </p><p>--------</p><p> </p><p>The first moment is when she’s five. </p><p>It’s kindergarten in Toledo, Ohio, after she befriends Grace Doyle, a small brunette who’s quiet and collected. Lucy isn’t exactly tall either, but even at five she knows Grace is tiny - at least three inches shorter than her. As shy as she is, Grace is loud and chatty once Lucy gets to know her and they form a close bond complete with friendship bracelets and weekly playdates at Grace’s house.</p><p>Grace’s mother is the complete opposite of Lucy’s - where Judy Fabray is put together and somewhat unaffectionate, Elizabeth Doyle is carefree, allowing messy bedrooms, entirely unhealthy meals, and outfits that don’t match, hugging and kissing her daughter at every chance she gets.</p><p> It’s an environment that Lucy isn’t used to, she lives in a house with pristine surfaces, where even her toys must be arranged in a certain way within her closet. She’s used to her father coming home late from business meetings with the smell of scotch on his breath, her mother cleaning and cooking awaiting his arrival, her sister sitting up straight and saying grace before they eat at the dinner table in complete silence. </p><p>She loves Grace’s house because she doesn’t have to follow the rules; she can eat candy and run around without being yelled at for acting unladylike.</p><p>She gets the strange feeling that Grace’s mother can sense this, because she always makes sure to hug Lucy as well as her own daughter and sends her home with some extra pieces of candy in her backpack to eat at school the next day. She also makes sure to fix Lucy’s hair and straighten her clothes out before Judy arrives to pick her up; the first time she’d arrived, Judy had reprimanded Lucy for the state of her hair which had slipped out of its braid as the girls played outside, she sent a rather pointed glare in Elizabeth’s direction, before hastily rebraiding her daughter's hair and ushering her to the car. </p><p>Lucy gets along with Grace really well; they play with Grace’s dolls - she has a much larger collection than Lucy - and play house in Grace’s treehouse, running wild around her backyard with a soccer ball pretending to be sisters. </p><p>The moment happens on a Sunday in the second half of the year.</p><p>Lucy’s family has just gotten home from church when the phone rings. Russell mutters something about disrespect on a Sunday but answers it anyway. He frowns at the voice on the other end before handing the phone to Judy, “It’s the mother of some friend of Lucy’s,” He says coldly and retreats into his office.     </p><p>Judy takes the phone and talks for a few minutes in a hushed voice before reciting their address and hanging up, she turns to Lucy and informs her that Grace is coming over because her mother got called into work. </p><p>Lucy has never had a playdate on a Sunday before and she jumps up and down for a second before she sees the look on her mother’s face and composes herself quickly. Her feet clatter on the staircase as she runs up to her bedroom to change out of her church dress.</p><p>Elizabeth drops Grace off twenty minutes later, thanking Judy profusely as she runs back to her car. Judy just nods in acknowledgement and leads Grace inside, asking what she’d like on her sandwich for lunch. Grace and Lucy eat together at the dining table - usually, she’s not allowed to speak at the table, but Judy sits with them and answers Grace’s question, prompting Lucy to do the same. She gives her mother a questioning look, but Judy just smiles and says, “We can talk when there’s a guest, Lucy Q.”</p><p>They head upstairs to play with Lucy’s dolls for a few hours, prancing them around her room, holding a marriage ceremony between Barbie and Ken. It’s at three pm that Judy calls them downstairs for an afternoon snack and Grace watches in confusion as Lucy packs up all her dolls and puts them away neatly in her closet. Lucy knows that at Grace’s house she’s allowed to leave her dolls out as long as they're packed away before bedtime. </p><p>As they make their way downstairs, Grace suggests they go outside and play house after their snack, Lucy just shrugs and says she’ll ask permission to go outside. Grace frowns again, and Lucy knows it’s because she can go outside whenever she feels like it. Lucy isn’t allowed to; she honestly can’t remember ever setting foot out the back door unless they’re hosting the monthly church barbeque. </p><p>She does ask though, approaching Judy and speaking in a tiny voice, promising they won’t run or get dirty. Judy looks skeptical but agrees, stating she’ll watch them from the kitchen window and call them in if she thinks they’re being too loud.</p><p>Lucy makes sure that Grace knows that they can’t run around like they do at her house, so instead, they play house, using the neatly trimmed bushes in the corner as a pretend kitchen. Lucy spends the time cooking a ‘meal’ out of leaves and sticks, while Grace sits on the sandstone retaining wall and pretends to be in an office. </p><p>It’s half an hour later when Lucy hears the back door open and looks up expecting to see her mother calling them in, or her older sister Frannie coming to inquire as to why they’re making so much noise underneath her window. </p><p>She freezes when Russell exits the house, a look of pure rage on his face. “Lucy,” he says. </p><p>Her spine straightens automatically and she folds her hands in front of her, “Daddy.”</p><p>Grace looks between them, unsure why her best friend looks so tense, refusing to make eye contact, her gaze firmly fixed on a leaf just in front of her right foot. </p><p>“What are you doing?” Russell’s voice is quiet, scary. </p><p>“Playing house,” Lucy knows her dad will be angry about it, but he’ll be angrier if she lies about it. She doesn’t move her eyes, but runs through her body with her mind, trying to determine if there’s dirt on her dress or arms.  </p><p>Russell raises an eyebrow, “But there’s no boys here?” </p><p>Lucy nods, “We’re just being two girls who live together.” She knows that’s the wrong answer before the sentence has even left her mouth. </p><p>Russell takes another step toward her and Lucy flinches. “That’s still not right and you know it,” His voice is booming and filling up all her senses, making it impossible for her to move, “A household must have a mother and a father, otherwise it’s not a house.” </p><p>Lucy nods, unable to open her mouth. </p><p>Grace frowns, eyes focused on her friend who seems frozen in place. She feels uneasy, like she has to defend Lucy, “My house doesn’t have a mother and a father, I just have my Mommy.” </p><p>Russell freezes and Lucy flinches, and there’s no way for Grace to know that she’s just unintentionally hurt her best friend. </p><p>“Inside. Now.” Russell still doesn’t raise his voice but there’s something cold and sinister about the way he speaks, it fills the space between him and his daughter.  </p><p>They traipse inside and Lucy doesn’t speak for the entire two hours that remain of their playdate, she just pulls some paper out of a drawer and they sit together at the desk in her room and color in silence until Grace’s mother arrives. </p><p>Russell opens the door when the bell rings and greets Elizabeth, speaking to her briefly, inquiring about her work and lack of a husband, before all but pushing Grace out the door, slamming it and turning on Lucy and Judy.   </p><p>“Lucy,” His voice is still quiet, “You are not to speak to that girl again.”</p><p>“But -” Lucy protests. </p><p>The palm of his right hand connects with her cheek hard and she knows she overstepped, she gasps and brings her hand to her face, willing herself not to cry. Her ears ring with the force of the motion and she stumbles back slightly into the wall.</p><p>“Don’t talk back to me young lady. That girl is a bad influence, she has no father to guide her correctly,” He’s yelling now, “Not to mention that her mother is an <em>immigrant</em>,” He snarls the last word. </p><p>Judy interjects, not looking towards the daughter her husband just hit, “Sorry Russell, I didn’t realize.”</p><p>Russell turns towards his wife, rounding on her with the same rage, “She’s a waitress, you never met the father and she’s clearly <em>Mexican</em>. I expect to meet all of Lucy’s potential friends and their parents from now on.”</p><p>Judy nods. </p><p>Lucy’s father looks back at her, eyes filled with disappointment, “You keep yourself in check, we never had to deal with this with Frannie. I don’t expect to ever deal with it again.”</p><p>Lucy nods as well, eyes fixed on a point just to the left of her father’s head. </p><p>Russell walks back to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of scotch before returning to his office, feet stomping loudly on the hardwood floor.</p><p>It’s only after the door has shut behind him that Lucy lets herself cry, her cheek is still stinging and her tears dribble down over the tender skin. Judy shushes her softly and leads her upstairs, sitting her on her bed and rubbing her thumb repeatedly over the spot Russell struck. </p><p>“You just have to listen to your father,” Judy comforts, “No more talking to Grace, okay?”</p><p>Lucy just nods, more tears threatening to spill over. </p><p>The next day at school, when Grace approaches her, Lucy turns away and refuses to speak to her, her heart clenches when Grace gets upset and asks what she did wrong. She clenches her teeth and repeats the lessons her father taught her the day before in her head. </p><p>Girls can’t play house with other girls, no matter what; girls and boys live together.</p><p>She can’t be friends with an immigrant – she doesn’t even know what that word means.</p><p>Her father's rules must be obeyed. </p><p>After all, her father’s rules are based off God’s rules, and God is never wrong.</p><p>At age five she’s Lucy Fabray. </p><p>She has a Mom, a Dad and a sister.</p><p>She’s a good Christian girl. </p><p>She listens to her parents. </p><p>She does what God thinks is right.   </p><p> </p><p>---------</p><p> </p><p>The second moment happens right before she starts seventh grade.</p><p>They’d moved to Fairbrook the year earlier and she’d started at Belville Middle School. She hates it here. When she’d first arrived she’d tried to make friends, but all of the kids who had seemed interested had either thought it was weird when she requested her father meet their parents before she sat with them at lunch, or they’d set up the meeting only to have her father reject them. </p><p>After about a month, people stopped trying and she was labelled as that weird kid who didn’t have any friends. They start to make fun of her for always wearing long skirts – pants were not ladylike - and laugh as she sits out of PE, her father having called the school and demanded she be exempt from lessons due the ‘masculine’ nature of the sports they’re forced to play.  </p><p>She tries not to resent her father for the teasing, she knows he’s trying to make her into a good person, but there’s a nagging feeling in the back of her head that maybe he doesn’t quite have the right definition of ‘good’. </p><p>There’s only one person who she could even vaguely consider a friend and that’s Evie Scott from Sunday School, she’s four years older and along with Lucy they help tutor the younger kids, teaching them about the bible. She’s tall and thin and everything that Lucy wishes she was. They only see each other once a week - Lucy isn’t quite old enough to attend the Friday night Youth Group yet - but despite the age difference, they get along quite well. </p><p>They both enjoy reading and Evie lends her grownup books to read, some of which Lucy is entirely certain her parents wouldn’t approve of - Evie switches the dust jackets for the novels that conceal what they actually are and hands then to Lucy with a wink that makes her stomach twist in a way she doesn’t understand. </p><p>She reads about love that doesn’t involve God and teenagers who have sex outside marriage and get drunk on the weekends, not obeying all of the rules their parents set out for them. </p><p>The books make her question a lot of things about her life - the way she’s been taught to behave compared to the way everyone else seems to behave. She’s been raised with the mentality that women and children are to be seen and not heard, but the females in these novels are loud, carefree and unapologetic. </p><p>She starts to long to be someone she doesn’t think she can be - not without breaking her father's rules and facing the consequences. She wishes she was brave enough to at least do enough to stop the teasing remarks other kids make about her. But she already knows the consequences of disobeying even the smallest of rules. Punishments that mean she has to carefully apply concealer to her cheeks before school, so no one notices the red marks where Russell’s wedding ring caught her at slightly the wrong angle.  </p><p>She always talks to Evie during the morning tea break at church. Together they hide away in the Sunday School room and whisper about the books that neither of them are allowed to read. She tells Evie all her secrets, about the kids at school who call her names and make fun of her weight and her religion. The kids who tease her about being the younger sister of Frannie Fabray, because how could someone as beautiful as Frannie have a sister that looks like her. </p><p>Evie pulls her into tight hugs and tells her she’s wonderful and she shouldn’t listen to them, “You’re Lucy Fabray,” She says, “You’re your own person. You don’t have to be like Frannie - you’re beautiful, Luce.” </p><p>Evie’s older, so Lucy can’t exactly invite her over - Frannie would think she was insane for befriending a high school junior. </p><p>They stick to their weekly conversations. </p><p>One day, a few weeks before Lucy’s twelfth birthday, halfway through morning tea, Evie turns to her from her seat inside the tiny Sunday School room. She has a strangely nervous look on her face that makes Lucy’s heart sink into her stomach. </p><p>“Lucy,” She says hesitantly, glancing around as if making sure no one else is in the room, “Do you really believe in God?” </p><p>It takes Lucy a moment to reply, taken aback by the question. She’s never been asked that before, she’d been raised in Church, obeying God’s will. There had never been a time when she’d had her faith questioned before. There’s a minute of silence before she says, “Yes, don’t you?” </p><p>She doesn’t want to offend Evie if she doesn’t believe - despite what her father says, she knows you don’t have to believe in God to be a good person. The secret books Evie shared with her taught her that. </p><p>“I’m not sure,” Evie shrugs, “The Bible says we’re supposed to love our neighbors - but why does that exclude some people?”</p><p>Lucy frowns, unsure about what Evie is saying, “What do you mean?”</p><p>At that moment Judy Fabray walks in to check on Lucy, making sure she’d taken snacks from the table outside and handing her a plastic cup of orange juice. After she’s left, Lucy prompts Evie to finish what she was saying. </p><p>Evie just shakes her head, “It doesn’t matter.” </p><p>She can’t shake the feeling that Evie was going to tell something important. She ponders Evie’s question for the next few weeks - she thinks about the books Evie lent her and the girls in them who don’t seem to follow any religion, who act like the girls at school who aren’t teased. It’s not necessarily making her question her own faith. Her belief in God is the one thing in her life that doesn’t make her feel like a failure. But she thinks she understands where Evie is coming from, she’d thought about Grace, her old friend who she’d been forbidden to see because her mother was an immigrant. Grace had been a good person, even if her Daddy had told her she wasn’t allowed to love her.</p><p>The weekend after her birthday she’s worked up the courage to ask Evie about it again, to see if she will elaborate. </p><p>Except, Evie isn’t at Church that day, or in Sunday School. She would pass it off as Evie being sick - anyone with the flu had been banned from attending after the time Judy had forced Lucy to attend with a 101° fever and she’d thrown up in the coatroom - but people are treating Mr and Mrs Scott strangely, sitting further away from them than usual and looking over them with judgmental eyes. When they stand alone during morning tea, no one approaches them. Lucy sits by herself on the main steps of the Church and decides that she’ll have to ask her parents about it when they get home. </p><p>She phrases the question as, “What happened to the Scott’s?” as opposed to, “Do you know where Evie was today?” After eleven years with her parents she’s learnt what triggers her father’s violent tendencies which result in the need for concealer on her cheekbones and her mother softly telling her, “You shouldn’t rile him up.” </p><p>Both her parents and Frannie give her a stricken look after she asks the question, then three heads turn to Russell, awaiting a response. </p><p>“Their daughter got sent away,” He scowls, “No one wants to catch their sin.” </p><p>“What sin?” Lucy is confused, the books weren’t enough to send Evie away were they, as far as she knew nothing in those books were serious sins - at least not serious enough that they couldn’t be fixed with confession and Hail Mary’s.  </p><p>“Homosexuality,” Is all her father says and leaves the room, ending the conversation. </p><p>Lucy’s heard of that before in Sunday School, even if she doesn’t entirely know what it is. She knows it’s a serious sin and she immediately knows that’s what Evie was trying to tell her the other week, though. It’s not something Lucy had ever considered - even with the books, Evie was the perfect example of a good Christian child; she was everything Lucy aspired to be. She didn’t want to believe that the girl she admired had really committed a sin like that - something that required actual intervention to correct.  </p><p>She walks up the stairs to her room slowly, her brain replays all of her interactions with Evie to see if this was something she should have foreseen. She wonders for a moment if Evie only called her beautiful because she had some kind of sick, perverted crush on Lucy. She brushes that thought away before it fully forms.</p><p>She sits on her bed, going through the motions of unbuckling her sandals and tucking them away, she’s halfway through unzipping her Church dress when there’s a knock on her door. </p><p>Frannie stands in her doorway and Lucy nods at her to come in, her sister immediately stepping over to her and helping her with the last few inches of her zipper, holding up the Sunday afternoon dress Lucy pulled out to wear, pulling the zipper up after Lucy slipped it over her head. </p><p>“Thanks,” Lucy says softly. </p><p>Frannie looks at her for a long moment, then opens her mouth to speak, “Evie isn’t a bad person.”</p><p>Lucy shakes her head at her sister, “She’s a sinner.”</p><p>“You know,” Frannie pauses, “Just because something’s written in the Bible doesn’t mean it’s God’s will. I know it’s meant to be God’s words and we’re meant to listen to God’s words, but you also need to be yourself.”</p><p>She frowns, “But Daddy always says I need to be who God wants me to be.” </p><p>Frannie sits down next to her, leaning in close, “Dad’s not always right.”</p><p>A bubble of panic rises in Lucy’s throat, if their father hears Frannie say that - she shakes her head again. “Yes, he is,” She counters automatically. </p><p>“No, he isn’t.”</p><p>“But you always listen to him.” </p><p>Frannie sighs and looks towards the open door, lowering her voice, “You only see me at home - you don’t see me at school.”</p><p>Lucy gasps, she thinks about her sister, perfect Frannie Fabray doing something she’s not supposed to. She can’t imagine it, “You can’t disobey him.”</p><p>“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt me. Lucy,” She locks her blue eyes with Lucy’s hazel ones, staring intently, “You don’t have to be who they want you to be, not outside where they can’t see.” </p><p>“But God sees everything.”</p><p>“Lucy,” Frannie smiles softly, “Daddy does this to control us, do you really think the God he wants us to believe in would let you have no friends; let the other kids make you feel this way?”</p><p>Lucy frowns, she didn’t know Frannie knew about what her classmates said about her. She’d never considered that her life wasn’t the way it was supposed to be, “What do you hide from him?”</p><p>Frannie grins, “Well when I sleep over at Becca’s we normally go to parties.”</p><p>“That’s not so bad, parties aren’t sins.”</p><p>Her sister shakes her head at her innocence, “High school parties are.”</p><p>What she’s read in books clicks in Lucy’s head, “You drink alcohol? Frannie!”</p><p>“Of course, I do, I’m almost eighteen.”</p><p>“What happens if he finds out?” Lucy can’t quite believe that her sister - Francesca Faith Fabray, the perfect daughter - isn’t quite as perfect as she seems. </p><p>Frannie shrugs, “I’m going to college in a week, I just have to keep doing what I do until then - I’m going to Harvard, far away from Lima, they won’t know anything then. I’m getting out.”</p><p>“What about me?” </p><p>“You gotta keep your head up until you get out too - be who they want you to be.” </p><p>Lucy struggles to comprehend what that means. She can’t imagine ever disobeying her father, even though Frannie tells her she will one day. </p><p>At the age of twelve, Lucy now has five rules: </p><p>Girls can’t play house with other girls, no matter what; girls live with boys.</p><p>She can’t be friends with an immigrant.</p><p>Her father's rules must be obeyed.   </p><p>Her father’s rules are not based off of God’s will, no matter how hard he tries to convince her they are.</p><p>She must be who her parents expect her to be. </p><p>When she can, she has to get out. </p><p>At eleven she’s Lucy Fabray. </p><p>She has a Mom, a Dad and a sister. </p><p>She’s a good Christian girl.</p><p>She listens to her parents.</p><p>She knows you don’t have to follow God to be a good person.</p><p> </p><p>----------</p><p> </p><p>The next moment occurs directly after that.</p><p> She almost considers it more than a moment, because it’s something that takes her years to truly get over. In reality, it’s more like a series of moments that she groups under one category based on their relation to a single aspect of her life.</p><p>Frannie leaves and things immediately get infinitely worse for Lucy.</p><p>Suddenly she doesn’t have her big sister to look out for her and although Frannie had never explicitly stood up for her, the kids at her school knew who Frannie Fabray was and while they were mean, they apparently held off somewhat due to Frannie’s status. </p><p>She starts sixth grade and suddenly she’s being verbally abused in every aspect of her life.</p><p> Her classmates whisper about her as she walks down the hall, they laugh as she runs in gym class - the only aspect of gym she’s allowed to participate in, as running is not a gendered sport - they steal her lunch money, making snide comments about her weight and how she needs to skip a few meals anyway. The girls at school brag about getting their periods and about their boobs growing. Lucy forces her mother to buy her bras even though she really has nothing there yet. Her mother tells her she shouldn’t worry. But the girls at school start to tease her when she gets changed for gym, whispering that she’s so fat she probably needs something to hold up her stomach and thighs instead of her chest. </p><p>The worst of the boys, shove her into lockers and stick gum in her hair. She leaves school every day fighting tears, tears which can’t fall when she gets home, because <em>‘Fabray’s don’t cry.’</em></p><p>Besides, her father's comments seem to pick up now that Frannie is gone. There’s no perfect daughter to focus on, so he clearly decides to critique Lucy into being more like Frannie. He makes remarks about the portion sizes she eats at dinner, he compares her looks to Frannie’s. Her mother never says anything to defend her daughter, she just sits in silence, head bowed. </p><p>Lucy doesn’t defend herself either, she’s never been outspoken - behavior taught by her father - she lets the kids at school taunt her never saying a word; she lets her father critique her, head held high, maintaining eye contact as he insults her. </p><p>She doesn’t let her facade fall until she steps into the bathroom each night, tears falling as she stands in front of the mirror, staring at herself, looking at all the parts she hates - listing them in her head; the things she wishes she could change about herself. Tears well up in her eyes and she finally lets them fall, when no one is around to see. </p><p>She sees it on the Church notice board one day, only a few weeks after she starts sixth grade, a month after Frannie left, tucked behind a flyer for the food drive - an advertisement for ballet classes held in the community center across the street. She points it out to her mother and after a discussion with Russell, who agrees that ballet is appropriate for a young lady, she’s allowed to sign up for the Saturday morning recreational class. </p><p>Her church is in the next town over, so Lucy doesn’t know any of the girls in her new ballet class. They’ve all been doing ballet for a few years already, they’re all sticks - built completely different to Lucy - but they’re nice, something she’s not used to. They welcome her into the class, it’s not competitive, so they have nothing to lose by introducing someone with no experience into their group. They all help her learn basic moves, they don’t seem to mind that she’s overweight and struggles to get through a simple routine without panting - they just all repeat the mantra, ‘practice makes perfect.’</p><p>It does, it takes a few weeks, but she gets the hang of it. She can do the routines without feeling like she’s going to pass out, she feels more fit - she can even run a mile in gym class without going insanely red. </p><p>It’s when she weighs herself on the scale in the bathroom at home that she realizes exactly what ballet is doing for her - after only a month of twice-weekly classes, she’s lost almost seven pounds. It’s not a lot, but she suddenly realizes that she can lose weight - she can be more like Frannie. </p><p>The next week she asks her dance teacher if there’s anything more she can do to improve her dance - the better she gets the more weight she’ll lose. Her teacher just smiles and tells her she’s doing wonderfully despite her disadvantage.</p><p>Looking back, Lucy will realize that her teacher never meant anything negative with the implication behind those words, she was simply stating a fact; Lucy was the heaviest in her class. There were moves that her classmates did with ease that Lucy had to fight her body to be able to do, practicing them over and over until her muscles were burning, but she could lift her leg in that way. Looking back, Lucy would also realize that it was never about her weight, but more about the lack of physical activity prior to her beginning dance. The other girls had years of practice behind them, Lucy didn’t. </p><p>But at the time, the comment played on Lucy’s mind. She thought constantly about her teacher’s words - they swirled around in her brain, mixing with the taunts of the kids at school and her father’s constant condemnation of her appearance. </p><p>She finds herself staring at the other girls in her dance class, the gaps between their thighs, their slim waists and cheeks that are defined, not covered by fat. She starts to wish she looked like them, elegant and beautiful instead of fat and ugly. </p><p>She expresses this wish to them one day just before school let out for winter break. They had a showcase evening, where they would perform the routine they’d been working on since October for their parents. Lucy was trying not to feel bitter that neither of her parents had bothered to come. The words slipped out as they were changing out of their costumes and back into sweats before they went to sit at the back of the audience. All the girls slide their tops off, not even caring that other people might look at them. </p><p>“I wish I was skinny like all of you.” The words leave Lucy’s mouth before she’s even aware she was thinking them, even though they were always sitting at the back of her mind. </p><p>All ten of the girls turn to look at her, all in various states of undress. Lucy feels her face start to burn and she looks at her feet automatically, avoiding the eyes of the girls she’d probably call her friends.  </p><p>There’s silence for a moment as they all scrutinize her. Then Carly Baltimore smiles and says, “You’re not <em>that</em> fat, Lucy.”</p><p>All the girls nod and mummer in agreement, not even noticing the backhanded compliment.</p><p>“You could totally lose weight if you tried,” Alice Lange adds, somewhat unhelpfully.</p><p>“Yeah,” Eloise Nguyen states, “My mom lost heaps of weight last year, you just gotta exercise heaps and make sure you don’t eat too much.” </p><p>It’s that conversation that’s her downfall. Their words worm their way inside her brain until she can’t think of anything else, just that she’s fat and ugly, but she could be elegant and beautiful if she just tried harder. </p><p>So, she tries. </p><p>She starts by throwing out all the junk food in the pantry and begging her mother to buy her a treadmill for Christmas so she can exercise without anyone from school seeing her jogging or going to the gym. </p><p>She’s slightly surprised when her parents actually comply, Russell grumbling as he assembles it in the corner of her room. His muttered, <em>‘Maybe now she’ll get rid of that baby fat,’</em> is just another motivation added to her growing list of reasons why she needs this. Needs to be pretty. </p><p>It’s easier than she thought at first. She pushes down the urges to eat junk food when she’s hungry, snacking on fruit and salad instead. She runs a mile on her treadmill in the afternoons, sweating, but feeling good because she’s <em>doing something</em>. </p><p>The problem is, when she looks in the mirror, she still sees fat and ugly, and the scale in the bathroom tells her she’s only lost two pounds in a week. She needs to do more. </p><p>It starts when she goes back to school after winter break and one of the boys steals her lunch money and yells ‘<em>maybe if you skip lunch you won’t be so caboosey, Lucy,’ </em>his friends laugh and she walks to the cafeteria with her head down, sliding onto a bench by herself and pulling out the salad she’s packed in anticipation of her lunch money disappearing. She stares at it and his voice echoes in her head, until Eloise’s replaces it, ‘<em>eat less.’</em> She throws the salad in the bin. </p><p>She finds that skipping lunch is easy, as long as she eats breakfast just before she leaves, and dinner isn’t too late in the evening. </p><p>Then they have to run cross country in gym class and Lucy struggles to keep up with everyone else, despite her daily runs on the treadmill. </p><p>She looks in the mirror that night and pinches the fat that clings to her thighs and stomach, tears burning in her eyes. <em>Ugly. </em>She has to try harder. </p><p>So, she does.</p><p>She starts running two miles a day on her treadmill, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. Then two turns into four, and four into eight and eventually however many miles she can fit in the half an hour before school and the hour after that she allocates to exercise. She runs even when every muscle in her body burns and she feels like she’s about to collapse from exhaustion. She runs until she can keep up with everyone in cross country, even managing to overtake some of the slower girls who just use the time to gossip. </p><p>Except when she overtakes them, she can hear them laughing. She is hyper-aware of the fat on her thighs bouncing and can feel their eyes staring at it, burning into her flesh.</p><p>She has to try harder. </p><p>She starts weighing herself in the morning when she first wakes up - after she pees - and before she goes to bed. The number at night is always higher and she feels the food she’s eaten throughout the day sitting heavily in her stomach. Maybe if she eats less, she’ll feel better, she’ll lose even more weight. </p><p>She cuts breakfast out of her morning routine, instead running on her treadmill for an extra half an hour. If her mother notices the behavior she doesn’t say anything.</p><p>She starts recording everything in a journal she hides behinds her bookcase. The date scribbled at the top, her weight in the morning and the evening written below along with a list of what she ate.</p><p>One Saturday in early March her dance teacher asks her if she’s on a diet, “You’ve lost a bit of weight, Lucy.”</p><p>She tells her yes, because she is on a diet - a diet of hardly anything. But the words ‘<em>a bit</em>’ swirl in her head and she looks in the mirror of the dance room, looking at herself next to the others. <em>A bit</em> isn’t good enough. <em>A bit</em> means she’s still fatter than all the other girls, and when she looks in the mirror, she can see it, the way the fat clings to her in ways it doesn’t cling to others. </p><p>They always eat dinner as a family, so she can’t skip the meal completely - as much as the voices in her head tell her not too. Instead, she resolves to only fill a quarter of her plate, she even measures the plates one day when her mother is in her sewing room. If her parents notice how obsessively she scrapes the food into one corner of her plate and refuses to take any more, even if there are things, she hasn’t served herself, they say nothing. </p><p>But the weight on her scales still read higher at night than in the morning and she burns with shame every time she sees the numbers staring back at her. The voices in her head yelling at her that she better find a way to <em>get pretty, or else.</em></p><p>It’s a Sunday in late March when it first happens. Her mother hands her a brownie and a cupcake on a napkin at Church morning tea, and when Lucy goes to throw them out, Mrs Connell, the elderly lady who bakes for the Church every week is standing next to the bin. Lucy knows she can’t offend her by throwing away her food, so she forces herself to eat them instead. The voices in her head repeating <em>fat</em> and <em>ugly</em> with every bite she takes. </p><p>The feeling of the food in her stomach is too much, she feels it weighing her down and imagines the fat that it’s going to add to her already fat stomach and thighs. She thinks about the calories and the impact of sugars and oils on her body and how much uglier it’s going to make her and how stupid she is for eating it when she knows she needs to lose weight. </p><p>The thoughts swirl in her head making her dizzy until she excuses herself to the bathroom and kneels on the ground next to the toilet. She’s never done this before, for a moment her brain flashes with her father’s voice telling her how unladylike and unattractive this is. Then the voice is replaced by the usual ones in her brain, and she slides two fingers down her throat, needing something, <em>anything</em> to get rid of the weight in her stomach. </p><p>She gags when her fingertips bump the back of her throat, but then the brownie and cupcake are coming back up and for a moment the voices in her head disappear along with the heaviness of having eaten when she wasn’t supposed to. </p><p>She washes her hands and swishes water in her mouth before she hears Judy call through the door that the service is starting again. She slides back into the pews, and for the first time in months, the voices in Lucy’s head stay away for over an hour. </p><p>They return when she gets home, telling her she’s ugly and fat. She runs on the treadmill for the rest of the afternoon until her mother calls her for dinner. Working off any of the calories that might have already digested before she threw them up. </p><p>She starts excusing herself from the table after dinner, running to the bathroom and shoving her fingers down her throat and getting rid of the guilt she feels overeating along with the quarter plate of food she ate. </p><p>She weighs herself and writes it down in her notebook, tracking it intensely and feeling a leap of joy every time it goes down. </p><p>She’s smart enough to not throw up after every dinner, even when the food weighs her down and she has to run an extra five miles on her treadmill - she doesn’t want to see the disappointment in her father’s eyes if she passes out, a sign of weakness that won’t be tolerated in the Fabray household. </p><p>At the end of the school year she announces that she’s not going to be continuing dance the next year. She’s done the research and the recreational level ballet she does is burning as many calories as other sports she could be doing instead. There aren’t many sports that are approved by Russell Fabray for girls, but gymnastics is, and even the recreation level she’ll qualify for is more high energy than the slow movements of ballet that require muscle control and focus more than high calorie burning motions. </p><p>Judy switches her from dance to gymnastic without any questions, signing the forms and emailing them to the gymnastics center for after the summer. </p><p>Lucy is so focused on her weight and the voices in her head that she doesn’t even realize the ways Russell Fabray has backed off until Frannie comes home from Harvard near the end of August. She’s only staying for a week, for Lucy’s thirteenth birthday, and she brought home her boyfriend Marcus, who she’s been dating since just before New Years, but Lucy is so glad to see her. </p><p>The first thing Frannie does when she walks through the front door is pull Lucy into a tight hug and whisper, “How have you been?” into her ear. </p><p>There’s a certain infliction to her voice that Lucy recognizes, Frannie is referring to their father. “I’m fine,” She says, counting back in her head, “He hasn’t -” she can’t quite bring herself to say the words <em>hit me</em>, “Since January.” </p><p>It’s a sudden realization, she hadn’t even thought about her father and his actions. January was when she really started to lose weight - the voices in her head tell her it’s because she is less fat and ugly than she was, even if she is still fat and ugly. </p><p>Frannie squeezes her tighter, “I’m glad,” She pauses for a second and steps back her eyes scanning her sister, “Jesus you’re skinny, Luce.”</p><p>The words wash over Lucy and the voices in her head stop talking for just a moment at the word <em>skinny</em>. Then they’re back and Lucy shrugs, “Diet and exercise,” She responds, the voices forcing her to add on, “Still not as skinny as you though.”</p><p>Frannie frowns for a moment, brows curling inwards, “No seriously, Luce, you’re skin and bones, are you alright?”</p><p>The voices jump with joy again and Lucy nods, “Yeah, I’m fine.”</p><p>Her sister looks skeptical, but she’s distracted by Judy and Russell rushing in to meet her boyfriend. </p><p>Marcus is very lovely, Lucy decides, he’s kind and handsome, and most importantly he fits with Russell’s expectations. He’s from South Texas, Catholic born and raised, three brothers, perfect manners and, at least in the way he talks when Russell is present, well aware of the proper roles a man and women should hold in a household. </p><p>On Thursday, Lucy’s birthday, Frannie offers to take Lucy to get ice cream like they always used to from the little store on the corner of Elm and Maple. Lucy protests, “I’m still full from dinner.”</p><p>Frannie gives her a look that’s laced with concern, “You barely ate, come on.”</p><p>She reluctantly agrees and gets in the car. She orders a kid’s size scoop of plain vanilla in a cup with no toppings. It’s definitely not what she used to order and Frannie tries to convince her to get something else, but she insists. </p><p>The voices are practically screaming at her as she sits down, cup in hand. She tries to push them away as she uses the plastic spoon to eat the smallest bite she can manage. There’s no one else in the store but she feels Frannie’s eyes burning into her side and can sense the teenage boy who served them looking in their direction.</p><p>She lasts three tiny bites before the voices start to actually hurt her head, calling her fat and ugly and selfish and disgusting and a pig and fat and ugly and selfish and disgusting and a pig over and over, so loud she can’t think of anything else but making them go away. </p><p>“I feel sick,” She says quickly, not making eye contact with Frannie. She hears Frannie reply but can’t make out the words. “Please can we go home.”</p><p>She counts the seconds on the drive home, her hands shaking and her leg bouncing. She’s filled with dread and guilt and the ice cream feels like lead in her stomach and with every passing second she knows that she’s getting fatter the sugar and calories from the ice cream settling in her stomach and thighs and adding even more weight. They stop at a red light and Lucy panics, she starts doing leg raises, needing to do something to burn calories, not even caring that Frannie is next to her looking at her with worry. </p><p>Frannie doesn’t even get a chance to put the car in park before Lucy is flinging open the car door and running inside, up the steps to the bathroom. She locks the door and shoves her fingers down her throat, kneeling next to the toilet. The miniscule amount of ice cream she consumed trickles back up and out and she panics because she <em>must</em> have eaten more than that the way it felt in her stomach, she can still feel it there. </p><p>She shoves her fingers down again and again, forcing bile into the toilet bowl until her throat is burning and her head is throbbing. She knows she didn’t get it all, she knows she consumed calories and when she steps on that scale later the numbers are going to have gone up. </p><p>She washes her hands hastily and exits the bathroom, heading back to her room to run on the treadmill, to burn the calories eating her up from within. </p><p>Frannie is sitting on her bed, but Lucy ignores her, needing to run more than she needs to explain herself to her sister. </p><p>“Lucy,” Frannie says, standing to let her onto the bed. </p><p>Lucy bypasses the bed and steps onto the treadmill, cranking up the settings and pumping her legs. Her head pounds but she pushes through it, needing something, <em>anything</em> to get rid of the weight she feels in her stomach. </p><p>Frannie appears next to her, “I thought you were feeling sick, Luce?” </p><p>She can’t speak so she just shakes her head. </p><p>“Lucy, stop running,” There’s fear in Frannie’s voice, something Lucy has never heard before - Frannie isn’t scared or shy; she’s bold and brave and beautiful.</p><p>It’s that fear that compels Lucy to speak, her teeth are clenched and her eyes don’t leave the little red numbers counting up towards a mile, but she manages to whimper, “I can’t.” </p><p>She repeats the words over and over, <em>I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.</em></p><p>The voices in her head fill in the ends of each sentence; <em>I can’t be beautiful, I can’t be skinny, I can’t do anything other than be ugly and fat</em>. </p><p>Frannie wraps her arms around Lucy’s stomach and lifts her up and away from the treadmill. She doesn’t know what to do, she’s supposed to be a big sister, she's supposed to protect Lucy.  But in this moment, with Lucy weighing hardly anything, thrashing in her arms yelling the same two words over and over as her hip bones press into Frannie’s wrist in a way that’s horrifying and it fills Frannie with a sense of dread. </p><p>She doesn’t know what to do except keep talking to her, so she wraps her arms tighter and says softly, “Lucy, you don’t need to exercise like that. You’re beautiful.” </p><p>Lucy shakes her head, “No I’m not,” She’s vaguely aware that she sounds like a toddler, but she doesn’t care. She just needs Frannie to stop lying to her, “I’m fat and ugly.”</p><p>The door opens and Frannie looks up to see their mother looking in, clearly having come to check what the noise was. She makes eye contact with Lucy and then leaves the room. </p><p>Maybe it’s the fact that Judy could look at her in a moment where she’s clearly distressed and not do anything about it, but Lucy breaks. Shatters into a million pieces. </p><p>She sobs into Frannie’s arms, and her sister carries her over to the bed and lies next to her. She strokes her hair and whispers, “You’re beautiful,” Over and over until the force of her tears exhaust Lucy enough that she falls asleep. </p><p>When she wakes up a few hours later the sun has completely set and she’s under the covers in her pyjamas. She can hear loud voices downstairs, so she tiptoes to her door and cracks it open so she can hear. </p><p>Frannie’s yelling, it shocks Lucy - Frannie never raises her voice, no matter what. She shudders suddenly, wondering what her dad will do to Frannie once she’s finished. </p><p>“She needs help,” Frannie is saying. </p><p>“She’s fine,” Russell’s voice interjects, “You can’t tell me she was healthy before.” </p><p>Frannie’s voice gets louder, “And you think she’s healthy now? Look at her dad! She doesn’t eat, she wouldn’t stop exercising. I had to physically drag her off the treadmill, I think she’s making herself throw up.” </p><p>Russell’s voice grows as well, “She’s fine.”</p><p>“She needs help.” </p><p>When their father speaks again, his tone makes it clear that the conversation is over, “She’s fine.”</p><p>Frannie watches Lucy like a hawk for the rest of her stay, and Lucy almost feels guilty for lying when she gets up in the middle of the night to run because Frannie has kept her away from it. Almost, but not quite, because the voices are louder than her conscious and they tell her she has to run. So, she does. </p><p>On her last night, Frannie wraps Lucy up in a hug and says rather firmly, “You gotta eat, Luce. You gotta promise me you’ll eat.” </p><p>“I promise.” </p><p>The problem with that is that Lucy doesn’t break promises. </p><p>So, she eats. But when she starts eating, she doesn’t stop eating. She eats until she feels like she’s going to burst and then she runs to the bathroom and throws it back up, again and again until it’s all gone, and the voices stop yelling. At least for a bit. </p><p>Her throat hurts all the time, her head throbs and she’s cold even on the hottest days of the year. But by a month into the school year, she looks at her notebook and the way her weight has dropped and when she looks at herself in the mirror, she can almost see the weight she’s lost. Almost. Even as the voices tell her she can always lose more. </p><p>The first month of eighth grade is hell, but not for the normal reasons. She doesn’t get called names, another reassurance that it’s working, she doesn’t get shoved, no one tries to steal her lunch money - not that she has any. Everyone just looks at her with mild intrigue, as if they can’t quite believe she’s the same person. </p><p>Except she is, she’s still Lucy, she’s still fat and ugly.</p><p>The month is hell because Lucy can’t concentrate on school work for the first time in her life. She’s so tired she can barely keep her head up in class, let alone raise her hand to answer questions, or think of the answers to the questions. It’s hell because she can’t eat at school, because if she eats, she’ll have to throw up, and she doesn’t want to do it in the school bathrooms that are crowded and don’t lock. </p><p>Her new gymnastics class is on Friday’s after school.</p><p>Her mother drops her off after school one day in late September. She hasn’t eaten since early Thursday morning; her mother hadn’t been for the weekly grocery shop and the pantry was too empty for her to binge. She’s exhausted by the time she gets to the old warehouse space that houses the gymnastic center. Her head is pounding but she holds it up as she smiles at the other girls, none of whom she’s spoken too in any of her past lessons.  </p><p>The gym is stifling hot and her eyes burn as she tries to hold them open against the fumes of sweat. They begin with stretches and Lucy follows along with the class. When they stand up to move to the center of the floor, she has to shake her head to get rid of the black spots that are appearing at the corners of her vision. The room starts to spin as she copies the movement of the girl in front of her, they’re doing cartwheels along the length of the mat. </p><p>She manages one. Her limbs feel like lead and she physically can’t lift her arms up to start the next cartwheel. She feels hot and cold at the same time. There’s a hand on her shoulder and it takes her a few seconds to register it, and once she has it takes even longer for her to turn her head in the direction. </p><p>Her gymnastics coach’s mouth is moving, but Lucy’s ears are ringing, and she can’t hear. The black spots are covering half her vision now and she can’t focus on her coaches’ mouth enough to read her lips. She feels like she’s on the teacups at the fair, spinning so, so fast. </p><p>She opens her mouth to say something, <em>anything</em>, but nothing comes out. Instead, the world spins faster, and she just barely registers a yell as she falls. </p><p>Then everything goes black.  </p><p>She wakes up in the emergency room, a nurse jabbing a needle into her arm repeatedly. She winces, which alerts the woman that she is awake.</p><p>“Hey sweetie,” The woman soothes, “Sorry about this, you’re pretty dehydrated and I need to find a vein.” </p><p>Lucy doesn’t say anything, her dad is going to kill her for ending up in the hospital. She winces again and the nurse offers her a small smile, before turning her concentration back to Lucy’s arm. </p><p>“There we go,” The nurse inserts a tube and hooks up a saline drip. “Your Mom is on the way, honey. We’ll get you all fixed up.” </p><p>The nurse leaves and Lucy lies completely still. Part of her is contemplating ripping out the IV and running out of the ER before her Mom gets there, part of her wants to bend the tubing so the water can’t get into her, another part of her just wants her Mom to hug her and tell her she’s going to be okay. </p><p>It’s the first time she’s actually acknowledged she isn’t okay. The way she felt in the gym was terrifying; the room spinning like that, and she knows it’s because she hadn’t eaten. It’s the first time her brain is fighting back against the voices, because yes, maybe she is fat and ugly, but she’s also exhausted, and suffering and she just wants it to stop. </p><p>It surprises her when Judy appears at her side and immediately pulls her into the kind of hug that she had wanted, it’s tight and warm and filled with worry. It’s telling though, of how little hugs like that occur, because her mother actually gasps when she pulls back, as though she’s truly looking at her daughter for the first time and noticing how thin and pale and sickly she looks. Tears well up in her eyes and she rubs her thumb over Lucy’s boney wrist. She doesn’t say anything, she just runs her eyes up and down Lucy’s body.</p><p>It’s the intensity of her gaze that makes Lucy wonder if she really hadn’t noticed her skipping meals and running to the bathroom. Wonder if she really had been too caught up in herself to notice that her youngest daughter was falling apart. </p><p>A man approaches her bed and smiles warmly at the two of them, “Hi, I’m Doctor McMaster,” He introduces, “I just wanted to ask Lucy a few questions.” He gives Judy a pointed look.</p><p>Judy nods and stands up, “I’m going to find some coffee, I’ll be back.” </p><p>Dr McMaster pulls a chair next to Lucy’s bed and sits down, there’s something kind about his face and it makes Lucy feel calm. She knows what he’s going to ask her and as much as the voices in her head are screaming at her to lie, the image of her mother’s face is burned into her brain and she feels compelled to tell the truth - she needs this to stop.</p><p>“So, Lucy, when was the last time you ate?”</p><p>Her voice cracks when she opens her mouth, her throat dry and sore, “Yesterday morning.”</p><p>“What’s your goal weight?”</p><p>She tells the truth. </p><p>“When was the last time you exercised?”</p><p>She tells the truth. </p><p>She tells him everything, and she’s crying and uncomfortable, but she needs him to know - she needs this to stop. She needs to not be fighting herself all the time. She needs to be able to go to bed at night and not worry about what eight hours of inactivity are going to do to her. She needs to be able to look at a piece of food and not analyze how long it’s going to take to digest and how close the nearest bathroom is. </p><p>She tells him about the voices in her head, talking over the way they’re yelling at her to stop, tells him what they say and how they make her feel. </p><p>The warm look doesn’t leave his face the whole time, and by the time she’s finished - face sticky with tears - he just tells her he’s going to help her and then examines her throat and takes her temperature. He tells her he’s going to weigh her, but he doesn’t want her to look at the numbers. He keeps talking as she stands on the scale and holds her gaze.</p><p>For the first time in a long time, Lucy doesn’t look at the numbers.</p><p>When Judy comes back, Dr McMaster looks at them both seriously and tells them that Lucy has bulimia nervosa that started as anorexia nervosa, and Lucy watches as her mother breaks down at his words. She grabs Lucy’s hand and says, “You’re going to be okay Luce, we’re going to help you.”</p><p>She gets taken upstairs and checked into a room, she’s going to stay for the weekend and on Monday she’ll go home and start outpatient treatment – Dr McMaster had fought for inpatient, but Judy had shaken her head firmly.</p><p>When she’s settled in her room, she looks at her Mom, questioning with her eyes what Russell is going to think about all this. Judy just shakes her head – outpatient he might be able to handle, but inpatient he won’t deal with.</p><p>A nurse asks if she thinks she’ll eat if they give her food and she tells the truth and says she isn’t sure. She smiles and nods and brings a tray with soft foods, Jell-O, rice and gravy. Her mother strokes her hair as she picks up the spoon and brings a tiny bite to her mouth. Her mother’s hand stays there, thumb moving back and forth slowly, comforting her as she takes bite after bite. She eats about a quarter before she has to stop, her head is spinning as the voices yell at her and she needs to stop before she loses control. The nurse seems to sense this and smiles again. </p><p>“You did great, Lucy. It’ll take time but you’ll feel better I promise.” </p><p>Russell Fabray doesn’t come and visit her in the hospital. But Frannie does, she takes an early morning flight and arrives just after midday, pulling Lucy into a tight hug.  </p><p>“How are you doing?” She whispers in Lucy’s ear. </p><p>Lucy shrugs, “Better.”</p><p>She’s not lying, she still feels awful, but not physically - her head isn’t throbbing, and she hasn’t gotten a dizzy spell, even her throat feels less dry than normal. Her brain is still swirling with self-directed insults, but it’s like a light has come on in her brain and she knows she has to fight the voices.</p><p>Frannie looks at her with sad eyes, holding her gaze intensely, as though she’s trying to see through Lucy’s skin and into her brain and her thoughts. </p><p>“Why’d you do this, Luce?” Frannie’s voice sounds like she might cry, Lucy hopes she doesn’t, she’s already seen her mother cry more in the past 24 hours than she has in the thirteen years of Lucy’s life. “Why’d you hurt yourself?”</p><p>She shrugs again, because she doesn’t really feel like explaining it. “I just wanted to be pretty and skinny.”</p><p>Frannie’s actually crying now, “But you are pretty, Luce. You’re beautiful.”</p><p>Lucy has to physically grab her chin to stop herself from shaking her head, “Not like you, you’re so thin and perfect.” </p><p>Her sister grabs her wrist and holds it up next to hers. “Look,” She says, quite forcefully.</p><p>Lucy looks down, two pale wrists next to one another, Frannie’s a little bit more tan from spending summer on the West Coast. </p><p>“You’re thin Lucy, too thin.”</p><p>And for the first time looking at herself, Lucy actually recognizes that. She sees Frannie’s wrist, perfect and thin, and then she sees her own wrist, and instead of seeing how she normally does, thin but not thin enough, she actually registers the way her skin clings to her bones. </p><p>She goes home that night, and Frannie kisses her goodbye before leaving to catch her red-eye flight back to Harvard. </p><p>Judy watches her like a hawk during dinner, having prepared one of the meals on the list the hospital provided, carefully portioning Lucy’s so that she gets the right amount of calories. Lucy pushes the food around her plate, and it takes her nearly an hour to finish it, but she does. The voices scream at her, but there’s a counter-voice now, the rational side congratulating her and pushing her to keep trying. </p><p>Russell doesn’t say anything to her until after dinner. He sits at the table until she’s finished her food and Judy has cleared her plate, then he meets her eyes and says, “There will be no more of this nonsense okay?” </p><p>Lucy nods, and goes to help her mother with the dishes, he grabs her arm as she passes and pulls her into a hug. It’s a strange gesture, and she stands stiffly for the half-second that it lasts before he pulls away and announces he’s going upstairs to throw away the scales and dismantle her treadmill. </p><p>It’s also strange because it’s the first and last time Lucy ever thinks that maybe he does actually love her. </p><p>She takes the week off school so her mother can monitor her, she’s supposed to have a therapy session on Tuesday, but her father cancelled it stating it was bad for the family image. Instead, he decides to be her therapist. </p><p>This consists of him inviting her into his office on Tuesday afternoon and making her write a list of all the things she dislikes about her appearance, while he makes a work call. </p><p>Lucy finds it odd, but she also remembers the film they watched in health class on ‘identifying the causes’ of mental health issues. She takes the pen and notepad and carefully writes down a series of words: </p><p>
  <em>My stomach. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>My thighs. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>My acne.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>My hair. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>My nose. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>My glasses. </em>
</p><p>She slides the list back across to her dad, who looks at it closely, picks up his own pen, makes two motions and slides it back. </p><p>She looks down at it, it now reads:</p><p>
  <em>
    <strike>My stomach. </strike>
  </em>
  <strike></strike>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <strike>My thighs</strike>
  </em>
  <em>. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>My acne</em>
</p><p>
  <em>My hair. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>My nose. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>My glasses.</em>
</p><p>“You’ve already fixed the first two,” He says. “Now we have to fix the rest.” </p><p>The next afternoon, he takes her to the optometrist and gets them to teach her how to put contact lenses in.</p><p>The day after that, he gets Judy to take her to the hair salon, and she leaves with blonde locks falling down her back instead of brown. </p><p>The day after that, Judy takes her to the dermatologist, and she leaves with a prescription for two new creams that are supposed to make her skin clear up. </p><p>The next Tuesday she enters Russell’s office again for her second ‘therapy’ session. He smiles at her and hands her the note from the previous week. </p><p>
  <em>
    <strike>My stomach. </strike>
  </em>
  <strike></strike>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <strike>My thighs. </strike>
  </em>
  <strike></strike>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <strike>My acne</strike>
  </em>
  <strike></strike>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <strike>My hair. </strike>
  </em>
  <strike></strike>
</p><p>
  <em>My nose. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <strike>My glasses</strike>
  </em>
  <strike></strike>
</p><p>She stares at the lines. She’d been avoiding mirrors since she got home - she found that the less she looked at herself, the less the voices yelled at her, and the less she felt the urge to weigh herself, something that was impossible since her father threw out the scales. </p><p>The past week had been very strange. She’d somehow felt worse and better at the same time. Worse because she was being forced to eat - small portions but eating nonetheless - with no way to throw up or exercise it off due to the watchful eye of her mother. But better, because she was eating and no longer felt dizzy and tired most of the time, she could walk up the stairs to her bedroom without feeling like collapsing. </p><p>She felt every mouthful she ate sitting in her stomach, and felt it churning around as her body processed it. It made her feel horrible, but then she’d picture Frannie’s worried face and remember the way her wrist looked next to her sister’s, and it scared her enough to put on a smile and force the food down. </p><p>There was a sense of relief that lingered, people <em>knew</em> - granted only her parents and Frannie; Russell would have a fit if that information spread further than their family. They <em>knew</em> and maybe they could help her stop feeling so awful all the time. </p><p>She looks down at the list, the one item that isn’t crossed off. She goes to take the list with her, but her father grabs it back and folds it up, placing it back in his drawer. </p><p>“It’s not complete yet.’ Is all he says.</p><p>Lucy doesn’t think much of it. She goes upstairs to her room and lets herself look in the mirror properly for the first time since she got home. She’s surprised, she looks different. Not that she didn’t expect it, but she hadn’t realized that hair color and glasses could change someone’s appearance <em>that much</em>. </p><p>For the first time in a long time, the voices don’t scream <em>fat</em> and <em>ugly</em> at her as she stares at herself, because she isn’t. </p><p>She still has acne and her stomach still rolls when she thinks about the weight she’s gained in the past week. But she thinks she can finally see herself the way other people do – the way Frannie does. In the past months she’d examined herself constantly – but the voices were making her do it from a critical standpoint, to look at all the negatives.</p><p>It’s not like she suddenly sees herself as beautiful and perfect – but she sees where the voices lied to her. She sees the way some of her bones stick out too much; the way her hair is thin and stringy; the way her eyes are bright; how when she smiles at herself in the mirror her face changes, lighting up in a way she hardly recognizes.</p><p>She struggles, but she forces herself to stick to her self-mandated recovery. Her father won’t let her see a therapist, so she does her best. She eats her meals, the portions slowly getting larger – but Judy watches her, so when her brain protests, she forces each mouthful down. She stays away from the bathroom for at least an hour after she eats, she sits and watches the News with her parents, knowing her mother is ready to follow her to the bathroom if she does go. She quits gymnastics, knowing that an hour of exercise unsupervised by her mother might not be a good thing. She goes for a half-hour walk with her mother every evening, it’s enough exercise to keep the voices in her head at bay, but not enough to send her into a full-on relapse. She calls Frannie once a week to update her and sends her daily texts letting her know how she’s doing – she thinks Frannie forwards them to their mother, but she supposes it’s okay.</p><p>She has bad days. Really bad days where she doesn’t eat anything while at school, or does and throws up in the bathroom. Russell refused to notify the school about her illness, not wanting it to somehow get out to the church. So, on those days she suffers in silence, no one notices. It usually on days when the boys who used to bully her for being fat make comments about how much weight she’s lost. She almost loses it one day in October when she overhears one of them whisper, <em>‘I guess she finally got a clue and started starving herself.’</em></p><p>Her fists clench at her sides, and tears prickle in the corners of her eyes. She wants to turn around and punch him in the face – as if he has <em>any</em> clue about her life. Instead, she just takes two deep breaths and keeps walking, not letting it show that she overheard and was affected.</p><p>Her brain screams at her at lunch that day, but she sees the same group of boys sitting on the opposite side of the cafeteria whispering, so she eats the nuggets and salad on her plate just to prove him wrong.</p><p>It’s the first day in a long time that she feels really really good about herself. Her stomach doesn’t clench at the dinner table, and she feels so good that she asks Judy if they can go and get ice-cream after dinner.</p><p>She orders a double scoop of chocolate; she finishes the whole thing without any urge to run and throw it up. The look on her mother’s face makes her heart swell with pride and for a few minutes, she’s able to forget any of it happened – that she’s the same person she was two years ago, the one who never questioned the way she looked, who felt good all the time.</p><p>She’s focusing so much on her recovery that she forgets about the list tucked into the top drawer of the desk in Russell’s office.</p><p>The one day in late November, Russell takes her to a doctor in Columbus. He doesn’t tell her why they’re there until they get into the doctor’s office and she sees pamphlets on various cosmetic surgeries. It clicks in her brain, and for one tiny moment, she thinks that this is the way her father shows love, by giving her what she wants.</p><p>She doesn’t speak during the initial consultation. Her brain is having an argument. Sure, she’d wanted this a few months ago when she’d been at the height of her self-hatred, but she’s been doing better, and she doesn’t know if she needs this anymore.</p><p>She feels much better about herself now. She doesn’t need to change herself more than she already has in order to feel good.</p><p>Russell shows the doctor a series of photos of Frannie that he’d brought with him, and informs him that he wants Lucy’s new nose to be a lot like Frannie’s, but not exactly the same – he doesn’t want them to look like identical twins.</p><p>At no point during the appointment do either of them ask her what she wants.</p><p>She’s silent the entire way home, debating the pros and cons of telling her father she doesn’t want this anymore.</p><p>The pros ultimately outweigh the cons because she doesn’t want to be stuck with a nose that she was coerced into getting for the rest of her life.</p><p>Russell closes the front door behind her she says very quietly, “I don’t want to change my nose anymore.”</p><p>She counts to two before Russell starts yelling, “You couldn’t’ve told me that before I spent money on that appointment.”</p><p>“You didn’t tell me where we were going.” She protests.</p><p>“Don’t talk back to me!” His voice is scarily loud.</p><p>She stays silent.</p><p>He keeps yelling anyway, “You had this ‘sickness’ - ” He puts the word in air quotes, “ - And I tried to fix it by giving you what you wanted and now you’re suddenly ungrateful?” He takes a deep shuddering breath and Lucy flinches. He continues, “I’ve given you everything in life and this is how you treat me, by getting ‘sick’ with an illness you invented in your head and now you don’t want what I give you.”</p><p>Judy’s entered the room now, standing in the doorway to the kitchen and looking at her husband towering over their youngest daughter. “What’s going on?”</p><p>“This - ” Russell points at Lucy with a scowl, “ – Ungrateful little bitch has changed her mind about getting a nose job, because suddenly she’s all better, even though she hasn’t fixed everything she said she needed to.”</p><p>Judy frowns, “Nose job? You were taking her to get a nose job? Russell, she’s thirteen she doesn’t need a nose job she needs professional help?”</p><p>“Help?” Russell laughs and Lucy wishes she could disappear up the stairs, but she knows she’ll be in more trouble if she does that. “Help for what? Her imaginary illness. She’s not sick Judy, she just wants attention and now that she’s got it, she suddenly doesn’t want what I offer her.”</p><p>For the first time in her life, Lucy watches her mother stick up for her against her father. “No,” Judy says forcefully, “She has bulimia,” She stumbles over the word, “And it’s a real psychiatric illness, I’ve done research. I can show you. She’s getting better because Frannie and I are helping her, not because she got attention. But she needs real professional help if we want her to get better completely.”</p><p>“Help?” Russell repeats, “Do you want this getting back to the church? Do you want everyone to know that our daughter is a disgusting, wasteful sinner?”</p><p>Lucy’s stomach bottoms out and her brain goes on a spiral. She’s not a sinner, she can’t be.</p><p>Judy gasps, “Russell, don’t – ”</p><p>“No,” Russell turns to Lucy, and she shudders visibly, “She needs to know that this is not okay. This sort of behavior will not be tolerated in this household. Do you understand, young lady?”</p><p>Lucy just nods, too paralyzed by fear to speak.</p><p>“Russell.” Judy protests.</p><p>It seems to be the thing that sends him over the edge, because one second it looks like he’s relaxing, and the next he’s swinging his arm, fist colliding with Lucy’s nose.</p><p>She lets out a cry, the force of the blow knocking her backwards into the banister. Pain flares through her shoulder, but she’s more distracted by the pain on her face. She crumples to the floor, hands coming up to cup her nose. There’s blood flowing out of both nostrils and she chokes slightly as she feels it running down her throat, the metallic taste filling her mouth.</p><p>She’s sobbing, but it hurts more to cry so she tries to stop the tears. A hand rests on her left shoulder and she flinches as it presses on the bruise already forming from her collision. She looks up, and through her tears sees the concerned face of her mother, she hears a door slam and assumes her father has retreated into his office.</p><p>Judy gently pries her hands away from her face, “Oh honey.” She whimpers as she sees Lucy’s nose. “Come on, let’s get you in the car.”</p><p>For one moment Lucy thinks her mother is driving them away to get away from Russell, but when she enters the bathroom a minute later to get a towel to hold to her still bleeding nose, she realizes that Judy’s taking her to the hospital. Her face looks wrong, and it takes a second for her to work out that it’s because the bottom half of her nose is sitting completely to the right of the top half, like it’s been detached. It’s swollen and blue-ish purple, and the amount of blood flowing out of it is concerning.</p><p>She keeps the towel pressed to her nose for the whole ride to the hospital, it’s stained completely red by the time they get there, and she tries not to think about what Russell would do if he saw she ruined their nice towel.</p><p><em>He</em> ruined their nice towel, she corrects herself. He did this to her.</p><p>It’s a Tuesday evening so the emergency room is relatively empty, Judy ushers her into a seat while she goes to get her forms, pulling their health insurance card from her purse.</p><p>They only wait two minutes after Judy hands the forms back to the nurse’s station before she’s sent into a consultation room and a nurse comes in to take a look at her. She winces as the towel is pulled away, and the nurse grimaces, “Poor thing. It’s definitely broken, I’ll send you up for some X-Rays so we know exactly what the damage is, but you’ll probably need surgery.”</p><p>“Surgery?” Judy sounds stricken.</p><p>The nurse nods, “It’s a bad break, doesn’t look like it’s a clean one either. How did it happen?”</p><p>“She tripped going up the stairs and hit her face on the banister.” Judy replies, it sounds so natural that Lucy would believe it if she didn’t know the truth.</p><p>“Poor thing,” He repeats, “I’ll get you hooked up to some pain meds, okay?”</p><p>She starts to nod, then stops when her nose throbs.</p><p>She’s helped into a wheelchair a few minutes later by a different nurse who talks to her as she wheels her upstairs to the X-Ray.</p><p>Another hour later, back in the consultation room, a young doctor returns with her X-Rays.</p><p>“Lucy?” He asks as she enters.</p><p>She nods.</p><p>“I’m very sorry but you’re going to need surgery. It’s a bad break.” He holds up the X-Ray showing her face. “You see this part here. It’s meant to be here,” He indicates where it lines up with the rest of her nose. “You’ve split and chipped the cartilage and that’s what we need to fix in surgery.”</p><p>Judy squeezes Lucy’s hand tightly. The pain meds have kicked in and she feels pretty loopy – she can’t feel the pain in her nose anymore, just the pulsing as it throbs.</p><p>The doctor asked her when the last time she ate was. She squints as she tries to remember if she ate lunch at school that day. Judy frowns at the pause. Her tongue feels funny, but she gets it working, laughing slightly as her words slur, “Lunchtime. I had lasagna and salad. I ate it all and I didn’t throw it up.”</p><p>The doctor looks at Judy for an explanation, and Lucy zones out as Judy talks to him. She starts to hum to herself, a tune she’s not sure exists. She feels light and free and good. She wonders if this is what it’s like to be happy.</p><p>The thought hits her like a brick. She’d never realized she wasn’t happy.</p><p>Then again what happy person has an eating disorder and ends up in the hospital with a broken nose because their Dad punched them in the face for not wanting to get a nose job.</p><p>She keeps humming.</p><p>She doesn’t really know when she gets checked in, just that there’s a hospital band on her wrist and she’s being wheeled into surgery, her mother at her side, kissing her when they reach the point she can’t pass.</p><p>She’s vaguely aware of someone placing a mask on her face and telling her to count backwards from ten. Then everything goes black.</p><p>When she wakes up again her nose is aching again. She blinks several times, trying to shake the exhaustion away.</p><p>Judy appears in her field of vision. “Hey, sweetie. How are you feeling?”</p><p>She can’t speak so she just nods.</p><p>She lays in silence, her mother’s thumb swiping back and forth over the back of her hand.</p><p>The doctor comes in a few minutes later with new X-Rays in hand. “All fixed,” He tells Lucy. “Now because of the nature of the break, it was quite difficult to set, so there’s a chance that it won’t look exactly the same as before, but we did our best.”</p><p>She nods.</p><p>“But I promise that once it heals, you won’t be able to tell it was ever broken.”</p><p>She nods again.</p><p>“I’m going to keep you for the rest of the night just to keep an eye on it, but if it looks okay in the morning then you can go home.”</p><p>“Thanks.” She manages to croak out.</p><p>He turns to Judy talking about healing time and what she can and can’t do during the recovery period.</p><p>When he leaves, Judy suggests that they both try to get some rest, it’s almost two am. She flicks the light switch off and settles in the armchair next to Lucy’s bed.</p><p>Lucy lies awake for a while, the throbbing in her nose, and slight twinge in her shoulder making it difficult to get comfortable.</p><p>In the last few moments before she falls asleep, she wonders if her father knows or even cares that his youngest daughter is in the hospital because of his actions.</p><p>She doesn’t go to school for the next week, and the week after that is a half week because of winter break, so she only has to go to school with bandages on her nose for three days. She stays quiet and out of the way, and besides a few whispered comments no one says anything to her.</p><p>The bandages come off just before Christmas, and like the doctor said he nose looks slightly different. The bridge is flatter, she runs her finger along it, feeling where the curve used to be.</p><p>She doesn’t hate it. It’s not drastically different, unless she looks at herself for a long time it’s not incredibly noticeable.</p><p>Still, when Russell makes a comment that it ‘looks better.’ Her stomach rolls.</p><p>She supposes he got what he wanted after all.</p><p>It makes her wonder if he knew what he was doing when he chose to close his fist when he swung his hand.</p><p>It’s on Christmas day when she looks at herself in the mirror before church, taking herself in. Her new red dress; the lack of glasses and acne; the blonde hair; the sixty or so pounds she lost; the nose.</p><p>She doesn’t look like Lucy anymore.</p><p>She doesn’t look like the person she’s known for the thirteen years of her life. She doesn’t dislike the way she looks. She just doesn’t feel like Lucy anymore.</p><p>A few days later she asks her parents and Frannie if they will start calling her Quinn. Something about her middle name just fits with her new self.</p><p>In April when her father announces they’re moving to Lima, Ohio, she jumps on the opportunity to get away from the kids who bullied her for years.</p><p>They move into a new house, a bigger house, and she decides to leave Lucy in Fairbrook.</p><p>At thirteen, she’s Quinn Fabray.</p><p>She has a Mom, a Dad, and a sister.</p><p>She’s a good Christian girl.</p><p>She listens to her parents.</p><p>She knows you don’t have to follow God to be a good person.</p><p>She doesn’t think her father loves her.</p><p>She’s not perfect.</p><p>She was sick, but she’s recovering.</p><p>She needs to get out when she can.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. oh, i couldn't stop it, tried to slow it all down</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The next moment technically happens when she’s fifteen. But the events that lead up to it take place from the moment she moves to Lima.<br/>Again, it’s more like a series of moments, but she groups them under one category because they all relate to the same thing. It’s the period of time when she started to work out who she was, only for it to get flipped on its head.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi Everyone,<br/>I'm back with another chapter. I will once again list the trigger/content warnings for this chapter in the notes, please read them carefully and don't read if you think it will harm you in any way - please stay safe!<br/>Enjoy!</p><p>TRIGGER/CONTENT WARNINGS:<br/>- Eating disorders.<br/>- Religion.<br/>- Child abuse (both verbal and physical).<br/>- Bullying.<br/>- Homophobia.<br/>- Underage drinking<br/>- Implied/referenced rape - this is the biggest one for this chapter, it's in no way graphic, but it's heavily implied and referenced throughout the chapter.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next moment technically happens when she’s fifteen. But the events that lead up to it take place from the moment she moves to Lima.</p><p>Again, it’s more like a series of moments, but she groups them under one category because they all relate to the same thing. It’s the period of time when she started to work out who she was, only for it to get flipped on its head.</p><p>Two weeks after they move to Lima, Frannie comes to visit for the first time since Quinn’s hospital trip almost a year earlier. She pulls Quinn into a tight hug the moment she walks through the door.</p><p>“You look good, Luce.”</p><p>“Quinn,” She corrects.</p><p>Frannie shakes her head, “You’ll always be Lucy to me.”</p><p>She doesn’t argue.</p><p>Frannie grabs Quinn’s chin and tilts her head up to examine her nose. They’d told her the same story they’d told the doctors, that she’d tripped and hit her face on the banister. She knows Frannie doesn’t believe her though, despite what she says.</p><p>“You look good, Luce. Better.”</p><p>Quinn smiles, “You look good too, Fran.”</p><p>She hasn’t seen her sister in almost a year. And while her voice had sounded the same over the phone, Frannie looks different too. Her hair is shorter - shoulder length and straightened – she carries herself differently, like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders.</p><p>Her style is the same, but Frannie secretly shows her some photos that demonstrate she doesn’t usually dress like this. The dresses and skirts from her teenage years are gone, replaced with jeans and leather jackets.</p><p>Two significant things happen in Frannie’s visit that cause Quinn to consider this part of her ‘moment.’</p><p>First, Frannie announces at dinner that her and Marcus are engaged and will be getting married in January. Judy and Russell are elated at the news she’s marrying a good Christian boy. Quinn’s elated because she knows Marcus makes her sister happy.</p><p>Second, Frannie suggests that she joins the cheerleading team at William McKinley High School – where she’s starting her Freshman year at the end of the summer. Frannie had been a cheerleader at Fairbrook High School, and all cheerleaders knew about the WMHS Cheerios.</p><p>“You’re a great dancer, I think you’d like it,” Frannie tells her.</p><p>She isn’t sure, but she sends an application in anyway. It’s a little late. The coach, Sue Sylvester, wanted all forms in before the end of the previous school year, but she explains that she only recently moved into the area and Sue reluctantly accepts the forms.</p><p>Two weeks later she receives a red envelope with her name and address printed on it in bold letter and the WMHS logo stamped in the corner. When she opens it, the letter is printed on a Cheerios letterhead, and her heart swells with pride as she reads the words:</p><p>
  <em>‘I am pleased to invite you to the annual WMHS Cheerios Camp. During this time, you will be evaluated, and it will be determined if you make it onto the team.’</em>
</p><p>When she tells her parents, Russell tells her he’s proud of her for the first time ever.</p><p>In mid-July, she pulls her new Cheerios training shirt over her head, throws her duffle bag into the car and sings along to the radio as Judy drives her to the campground just outside Columbus.</p><p>This is her chance to enter high school as a completely different person to the one she was in middle school.</p><p>It’s one thing to change her appearance and her name, it’s another thing for people to view her differently.</p><p>She checks in and follows the girl’s instructions to head to the main field. She stands on the edge of the group of Freshmen. Eying her competition.</p><p>“And blondie,” Sue points to her, “Cabin three, off you go!”</p><p>She follows the two other Freshman girls towards their cabin. Their pinky fingers are linked between them, indicating that they’re already friends. Quinn knows she’s one of the only girls here who didn’t go to Lima Middle School, so she’s already got one thing holding her back from being included.</p><p>She jogs slightly to catch up to them. She smiles at them warmly.</p><p>The tall blonde smiles back, “Hi,” She says, “I’m Brittany.” She gestures to the brunette beside her, “And this is Santana.”</p><p>Santana pulls a face that might be a smile, and Brittany gives her a look and digs her elbow into her side.</p><p>Quinn nods, “I’m Quinn. Quinn Fabray.” She introduces, and wanting to keep the conversation going, asks, “What school did you guys go to?”</p><p>“We went to Lima Elementary and McKinley Middle School.” Brittany answers, “Where did you go?”</p><p>Quinn is saved from having to answer by their arrival at the door of their cabin. “This is us,” She says, pushing the door open and entering.</p><p>Brittany and Santana follow her as she takes in the girls already in the cabin.</p><p>The senior in the cabin, Mary, introduces herself, and the other’s go around the room saying their name and grade.</p><p>Quinn dumps her bag on the bottom bunk opposite Mary, figuring Brittany and Santana will want the two beds next to each other. Her assumptions are confirmed when Santana makes sure to put her pillow at the opposite end of the bed so her and Brittany’s heads are next to one another.</p><p>There’s something about the two girls that Quinn can sense even after spending ten minutes with them. She doesn’t know what it is, but there’s something special between them that she can’t quite place her finger on it. They seem connected in a way Quinn doesn’t understand.</p><p>That first night she learns that they’ve been best friends since they were six – she’s never had a friend like that, so she figures that maybe when you’ve known someone for that long you have a special connection no one else understands.</p><p>She loves Cheerios camp, but hates it at the same time.</p><p>She loves it because she’s actually good. On the first morning, Coach Sylvester makes them run laps, and she pulls ahead of the pack. She finishes her mile in six minutes, something that surprises her because she hasn’t even run track, except for in Middle School PE. She figures the hours she used to spend on the treadmill every day made her faster, even if that wasn’t the goal.</p><p>She’s easily one of the more flexible girls out of the Freshman prospects, probably the most flexible with the exception of Brittany. One of the older girls asks if she’s a dancer, and, not wanting to reveal her old dance studio, she shakes her head and mumbles that she used to do gymnastics.</p><p>It’s the first lie she’s told. Even if it isn’t entirely a lie – she did do gymnastics for four afternoons, the last of which ended with her in hospital being diagnosed with an eating disorder. But that’s not exactly something she wants to share with people she hardly knows.</p><p>She hates it because Sue seems to be obsessed with everyone’s weight and constantly screams into the microphone that some of the girls need to lose a few pounds. Their meals consist of lettuce and a gross smoothie that makes her want to throw up.</p><p>It’s the closest she’s gotten to relapsing since she got her nose fixed and by the second afternoon, she disappears into the edge of the forest so she can have a breakdown without anyone seeing.</p><p>She’d gotten a phone for Christmas, a pink Motorola Razr, and Frannie’s number is the first one in her contacts. She calls her from just inside the tree line.</p><p>It’s three pm though and Frannie doesn’t answer, most likely because she’s at work.</p><p>Quinn slides to the ground, back pressed against a tree and cries. She feels more vulnerable than she has in over six months – she was doing so well, and Sue Sylvester’s stupid Cheerios diet is going to send her over the edge again. She doesn’t want to go into high school with the same demons plaguing her.</p><p>“Are you okay?”</p><p>She jumps at the sound of a voice, and whips her head up, furiously wiping her eyes to get rid of the tears.</p><p>It’s Brittany. She sighs in relief.</p><p>Brittany sits down next to her and wraps an arm around her shoulder. “Are you okay?” She repeats.</p><p>Quinn considers lying for a moment, but Brittany’s arms feel safe, and something about the girl suggests she’s good at keeping secrets, “No.” She answers truthfully.</p><p>“You don’t have to tell me,” Brittany hums, “But I’m good at keeping secrets if you do want to talk.”</p><p>She sighs, debating whether or not to tell Brittany the truth. “I used to be sick,” She settles on, “Not like sick, sick, but head sick.”</p><p>Brittany nods, as though she’s following along.</p><p>“I’ve been better for a while now, but Sue won’t give us proper food.” She pauses, gauging Brittany’s reaction to watch she says. The girl just smiles sadly, so she continues, “I’m worried I’m going to get sick again.”</p><p>Brittany pulls her into a tighter hug. “I won’t let that happen,” She says, “I have extra food in my bag, you can share if you want?”</p><p>Quinn looks at her in wonderment, “Really?”</p><p>Brittany nods sincerely, “Of course. I wouldn’t be a very good friend if I just let you get sick again.”</p><p>They stay there for a few more minutes, until Quinn’s eyes have dried completely.</p><p>When they get back to their cabin, Brittany slips her a packet of biscuits and two apples. “I have more, but finish those first.”</p><p>It’s honestly the nicest thing anyone has ever done to her, and Quinn smiles gratefully and pulls her into a tight hug.</p><p>From that moment, Quinn officially becomes a third member of Brittany and Santana’s friendship. She knows she’ll never be as close with them as they are with each other, but it’s the first time since she was six that she’s had proper friends, so she’ll take it.</p><p>She doesn’t know how Brittany fits so many snacks in her bag, but there’s enough to feed both of them for the rest of the week – even if she knows that Brittany is giving her most of it.</p><p>On the second last night, she’s lying in bed, ready to sleep when Mary tells them that they’re playing truth or dare. She choruses yes with the other girls, and climbs down onto the ground, slightly afraid she’s going to be forced to reveal something about herself that she doesn’t want others to know.</p><p>Of course, it’s her luck that Mary turns to her first and asks, “Truth or dare?”</p><p>She picks dare, thinking that she has too many secrets to risk picking truth. Mary tells her to go outside and lick the railing.</p><p>She grimaces, but does it, trying not to puke, and downs her water bottle right after to get the taste of metal and dirt out of her mouth.</p><p>She doesn’t know how it happens but then the older girls are talking about boys and sex, and she feels really awkward sitting in the corner, her back pressed against the bed. This is dangerous territory because she doesn’t want to have to reveal that no one has ever kissed her before.</p><p>That night when she’s lying in bed, she starts to think about what the boys in high school are like, and whether they’d want to kiss her. She tries to imagine what kissing a boy might be like, but every time she conjures a nameless faceless boy in her brain, kissing him feels wrong.</p><p>She falls into a restless sleep, dreaming that everyone finds out about Lucy and that she’s a liar. She wakes in the morning, feeling more exhausted than when she went to bed.</p><p>Her, Brittany and Santana are the only three Freshman to make the team.</p><p>She grins when she sees the list. Another thing that Lucy couldn’t do that Quinn can.</p><p>The next week, her mother drops her off at her first-ever high school party. Her parents think it’s just Cheerio sleepover. She buzzes with nerves at the thought of what might happen if Russell finds out she’s lying, but she brushes it aside. She hasn’t been invited to a party since second grade.</p><p>She’d called Frannie in a panic earlier that week. Her sister had told her what to do. Tell them it’s a sleepover, wear a dress, bring a bag. Frannie had also told her to find a friend’s house to actually sleep over at.  </p><p>She had no way to contact Santana and Brittany, so she figures she’ll work that out later.</p><p>The party starts at eight pm. However, Quinn tells her parents they’re meeting for the sleepover at six-thirty.</p><p>She gets dropped off at a quarter-to-seven. She waves at her mother from the doorstep of the older Cheerio Kelly’s house, waits until she drives away, then heads to the park a block over.</p><p>She changes in the public toilets. She feels gross, but the dress wore to not cause suspicion is not appropriate for a high school party and the image she wants to create for herself.  </p><p>She has church in the morning, but she’d told her parents that one of the older Cheerios would drop her home before they had to leave. They still went to church in Fairbrook and needed to make the almost hour-long drive.</p><p>She changes out of her dress and into a plain black top and into a black skirt that used to be Frannie’s that’s just a bit shorter than the dresses she usually wears. She leaves on her ballet flats and cross-necklace. It’s not perfect, but she thinks it projects the right image.</p><p>She hangs out on the swings until just after eight and makes her way back to Kelly’s house. There’s a small crowd, but she makes her way through it and into the backyard. She pours herself a drink – Frannie had told her how to mix them right, a quarter vodka, three quarters lemonade – then finds Brittany and Santana.</p><p>They’re dancing together and she joins them, she holds up her cup, “Chug?” She asks, wanting to sound cool, but also hating the taste and just wanting it gone.</p><p>They shrug and down their cups.</p><p>At around the same time the alcohol hits her, she loses Santana and Brittany. She knows they’re probably on the dancefloor somewhere, but she can’t see them. She goes inside to find a seat, settling on the couch.</p><p>She’s on her third drink, and everything is a little bit fuzzy.</p><p>Someone sits down next to her and she looks over to see a tall, gangly boy grinning at her. “Hi,” He says, “I’m Finn.”</p><p>“Quinn.”</p><p>He grins wider, “That rhymes.”</p><p>She raises her eyebrows, “I guess it does.”</p><p>“I’m a Freshman. What about you?”</p><p>“Same.”</p><p>“Really? I’ve never seen you before.”</p><p>“Transfer,” She says, “From Fairbrook.”</p><p>It’s not technically a lie, but it also is because she doesn’t clarify that she didn’t go to Fairbrook Middle School.</p><p>“Cool,” He says.</p><p>She gets the impression he’s not the brightest.</p><p>“I’m on the football team.”</p><p>“Cheerios.”</p><p>“Wanna dance?”</p><p>She almost says yes. Then her brain flashes with an image of his with his hands on her hips, dancing like some of the couples outside. She shakes her head.</p><p>Panic is flaring up in her, and she doesn’t really know why.</p><p>She gets up and heads upstairs to where she left her bag in Kelly’s bedroom. Her hands shake and she fumbles with the zipper, finally pulling out her phone.</p><p>She calls the home phone, praying that her mother answers. She does, and Quinn breathes out a sigh of relief, “Mom,” She says, slightly breathlessly, “Can you come pick me up.”</p><p>If Judy notices that she’s not wearing the same clothes she left the house in, or can smell the alcohol on her breath, she says nothing, just smiles and drives her home in silence.</p><p>She puts her arm across Quinn’s chest when they pull into their drives, stopping her from getting out. “If your father asks,” She says, “You didn’t feel well.”</p><p>She nods.</p><p>She’s worried when she enters school on the first day, worried that someone might say something about her abrupt departure from the party. No one does.</p><p>She finds her locker and places her books inside. She finds her first class, one that she shares with Santana and Brittany. She smiles at them as she settles in her seat next to them. They sit in the back row, no one occupies the empty seat next to them.</p><p>It’s on that day that she actually realizes the power of the Cheerios, the way the crowd parts for her as she makes her way down the corridor.</p><p>At lunch she sits at the table with the other Cheerios and Jocks, laughing with them. She notes that she’s one of the only Cheerios who actually eats lunch – she ignores this, even if Coach Sylvester isn’t happy, she’s not sacrificing the progress she’s made.</p><p>It’s the third day of school that Quinn sees <em>her</em>.</p><p>They share Spanish class together. It’s their second lesson so Quinn reasons that she probably had seen her before, but it’s not until the second lesson that Quinn actually <em>sees </em>her.</p><p>Mr Schuester is calling the role, “Azimio Adams?”</p><p>Absent.</p><p>“Rachel Berry?”</p><p>“Present.”</p><p>Quinn looks up. She’s still the new kid after all, and most of these kids have gone to school together since pre-school. She wants to put faces to names, so she knows who is who when Brittany and Santana are complaining about people.</p><p>She’s sitting at the back, so she can’t quite make out the face of the girl two rows in front of her. She sees dark, shiny hair, but not much else.</p><p>“Quinn Fabray?” Mr Schuester calls out.</p><p>“Here.” She replies.</p><p>Then the girl, <em>Rachel Berry</em>, turns around, and several things happen at the same time.</p><p>Quinn forgets how to breathe.</p><p>Rachel Berry makes eye contact with her.</p><p>Rachel Berry smiles at her.</p><p>Quinn thinks she might never breathe again.</p><p>Rachel Berry turns back around.</p><p>Quinn breathes again.</p><p>Then promptly stops again, because what the hell was <em>that.</em></p><p>In the following week Quinn learns several things about Rachel Berry.</p><p>Firstly, that she is a loser, and the number one rule of the Cheerios is <em>don’t associate with losers. </em></p><p>Secondly, she’s a singer and wants to be on Broadway. This she learns from Santana when she asks to go through her middle school yearbooks to learn everyone’s names.</p><p>Finally, that she has two gay fathers.</p><p>The last one she learns from her own father while they’re at church on Sunday. He’s talking to some fellow churchgoers about his new job at the law firm in Lima, and mentions in passing the <em>‘abominable man</em>’ he works with, Leroy Berry.</p><p>She perks up at the name Berry, and then hears her father go on a tirade about how he’s spreading his sin and shouldn’t be allowed to work in the public sector. He then continues, discussing how this man even dared to spread his sin further by having a child.</p><p>At this, he turns to Quinn who is standing at his side, “You know a kid by the name Berry?”</p><p>Quinn frowns, pretending to not immediately know, “Maybe? I think there’s a girl in my Spanish class whose last name is Berry.”</p><p>“You don’t associate with her. Disgusting child.”</p><p>Quinn feels anger shoot through her at this, but she doesn’t dare make a comment, not in front of all of Russell’s church friends.</p><p>The thing is, while her father’s homophobic comments make her angry, she can’t work out why she cares so much about Rachel Berry.</p><p>She hasn’t even spoken to the girl; they’ve looked at each other exactly once. Rachel isn’t popular – Santana jokingly calls her ‘hobbit’ behind her back – and according to both Brittany and Santana, she’s the most annoying human being on the planet.</p><p>Yet, for some reason, every time she thinks about the moment their eyes met her stomach goes all weird. Not weird like when she’s having a bad day and she forces herself to eat proper meals. But weird in a way she’s never felt before.</p><p>There’s a nagging thought in the back of her head that she knows <em>exactly</em> what’s happening, but for some reason her brain won’t let her access it. Like some part of her subconscious is aware that whatever the thought is, it’s going to hurt her.</p><p>The Jocks at McKinley are Grade A bullies, something Quinn learns pretty quickly, and Rachel Berry is their favorite target.</p><p>They claim it’s because she thinks she’s better than this tiny town and needs to be taken down a notch. Brittany tells her it’s actually because they’re homophobic pieces of shit – Quinn laughs when Brittany swears – and they take it out on Rachel, because she was born out of a love they don’t understand.</p><p>That’s something else Quinn learns very quickly. Brittany is a genius, but in her own kind of way. She writes in rainbow crayons, and sometimes her eyes look like absolutely nothing is going on behind them, but she’s so wise in an all-knowing kind of way. She has insights on everything, insights that sound so intelligently put together that Quinn doesn’t understand how anyone can think she’s stupid, because she’s exactly the opposite.</p><p>If Quinn were a better person, she might have stood up for Rachel Berry, especially when the slushies started halfway through the school year. But she’s still teetering on the edge of Lucy, having only just stopped being the victim herself. Most of the time she still feels so vulnerable, like one move will make the whole new person she’s become come crumbling down.</p><p>So, she watches, she plays along.</p><p>The one thing she’s mildly grateful for is that Cheerios never do the actual slushying. They order Jocks to do it, but a slushy never leaves a Cheerios’ hand.</p><p>Still, she watches each day as Rachel Berry takes a slushie to the face - her stomach flips every time, but she doesn’t do anything.</p><p>What makes her feel the most horrible is the names. She doesn’t interact with Rachel Berry very often, but when she does, she doesn’t call her Rachel. She hates herself for it, but every time something forces her to talk to Rachel, she makes up a new nickname, mean ones – like when the kids used to call her Lucy Caboosey.</p><p>The other Cheerios praise her for this, for asserting her dominance over the losers of the school, even as a Freshman.</p><p>Quinn feels awful. She’s becoming the person she used to hate, the one who torments people just for the sake of it.</p><p>She starts spiraling again.</p><p>And just like before, no one notices.</p><p>She has more people who should notice, but she’s better at hiding it now.</p><p>Santana and Brittany are caught up in whatever the hell is going on between them. Quinn thinks she knows, but she also knows, through Brittany’s sympathetic smiles, that Santana is nowhere near ready to admit it.</p><p>Coach Sylvester commends her when she stops eating lunch.</p><p>She’s pretty sure her father is having an affair with his secretary, and Judy is dealing with that in a way that means she downs enough alcohol everyday to prevent her from noticing when Quinn throws half her dinner out.</p><p>Russell, as usual, just doesn’t notice.</p><p>It becomes a cycle. See Rachel, call Rachel names, don’t eat for the rest of the day, or the rest of the week. Repeat.</p><p>It makes her feel better and worse at the same time.</p><p>Better because the guilt about her relapse is worse than her guilt about being mean to Rachel.</p><p>Worse because she feels so guilty that she’s relapsed – this isn’t Quinn behavior, it’s Lucy behavior. Then again, changing her name didn’t change her completely – Lucy’s still there no matter how hard she tries to forget about her.</p><p>She reaches dangerous territory again when she starts throwing up.</p><p>And that’s how Brittany finds out.</p><p>Because it’s Brittany who finds her half passed out on the floor of the school bathroom. Brittany who saw her down her lunch in about five second then run out of the cafeteria. Brittany who followed her.</p><p>And it’s Brittany who helps her up, and gives her juice from her Juicebox, and sits with her until she feels like she can stand, and walks her to the nurses office, and comes over that afternoon and sits on Quinn’s bed, sitting in silence, waiting for Quinn to be ready to talk. </p><p>Quinn doesn’t directly bring it up, she just says, “I’m sick again.”</p><p>Brittany nods, “I know.”</p><p>“I don’t know what to do.”</p><p>Brittany shrugs, “What did you do last time?”</p><p><em>Become a whole new person</em>. She doesn’t say that out loud. “I told someone.”</p><p>“You’ve told me,” Brittany reasons.</p><p>Quinn doesn’t exactly want to tell Brittany that she’s not sure she can help her the way she needs, but Brittany gets the message.</p><p>“What do you need?” She asks.</p><p>“Keep Rachel Berry away from me,” She replies.</p><p>She’s glad when Brittany doesn’t question why.</p><p>She doesn’t recover quite as well as last time, but she stops throwing up, so she’ll take it as a win.</p><p>Brittany doesn’t mention their conversation, but she must say something to Santana because now Santana is the one who insults Rachel if their threesome - cleverly dubbed ‘The Unholy Trinity’ by Santana – happens to come across her.</p><p>It’s not much better, but some of Quinn’s guilt ebbs away due to the fact that she is not directly involved, even if she does allow it to happen by being a silent bystander.</p><p>Quinn is extremely grateful for summer break, not just because she doesn’t have to go to school, but also because not going to school means not seeing Rachel Berry.</p><p>She takes the time to focus on herself. Her father is out doing god knows what – probably his secretary – her mother is drunk all of the time and lost in her own little world. Frannie’s in Europe with Marcus on the honeymoon they delayed until summer break.  </p><p>By the time Cheerios camp comes around she’s doing much better again – she hasn’t skipped a meal in two weeks, her bag is loaded with food so she doesn’t have to skip meals at camp, and she’s ready to prove once again that she’s good.</p><p>It’s made infinitely better when Coach Sylvester approaches her at the end of the week and tells her she’s being promoted to Head Cheerio. When she questions Coach about the upperclassman, Coach just smiles at her, “I picked the best girl for the job Fabray. Make me proud.”</p><p>The next week at the party, Quinn accepts Finn’s offer to dance. He’d been approaching her all year and she finally gives in.</p><p>A small part of her brain thinks that maybe if she dates Finn she’ll stop thinking about Rachel.</p><p>She doesn’t.</p><p>She kisses him that night, the first person she’s ever kissed, and she doesn’t really understand what the hype is.</p><p>She dates Finn anyway. He’s not the brightest, but he’s mostly nice and he doesn’t pressure her into doing anything more than occasionally kissing him chastely on the lips.</p><p>And really that’s where everything goes wrong.</p><p>Because dating Finn means spending time with Finn.</p><p>They mostly hang out at his house – he plays video games while she reads in the corner. The arrangement doesn’t really bother her, it’s what she’d be doing anyway, just in a different place with another person there.</p><p>Sometimes they go to Santana’s house to swim in her pool with her and Brittany. Sometimes Puck joins them too.</p><p>It’s the Friday before the start of Sophomore year that it all falls apart.</p><p>She’d been at Cheerios practice – Sue insisting that they begin before the school year started to whip the new Freshman into shape.</p><p>Santana and Brittany had disappeared right after they finished – Quinn can sense the growing tension between them, so she lets them go, not wanting to get caught in the middle of their personal drama.</p><p>Then she was alone in the locker room, and she really didn’t want to go home, things were worse than ever – her mother was so out of it most days she didn’t even recognize Quinn was Quinn, calling her Frannie, or worse <em>Lucy</em>. Russell wasn’t there most of the time, but when he was, he was a ticking time bomb, just waiting for his wife or daughter to make a mistake, so he could blow up.</p><p>She calls Finn. He tells her he’s at Puck’s playing games. She asks if she can come over.</p><p>It’s not really awkward at first, they sit on the couch, she sits in the armchair and pulls her book out of her bag. The boys are drinking beer, she pulls a face when they offer her one. Puck leaves for a minute and comes back with two cases of wine coolers.</p><p>She takes one, because she doesn’t want to be rude. She hates the taste, so she sips it slowly at first – then when that doesn’t work she downs it fast, just to get rid of it.</p><p>Puck makes a crude comment about Finn getting some that night, he laughs awkwardly. Quinn stays silent.</p><p>Puck offers her another drink. She takes it.</p><p>Then another.</p><p>Then another.</p><p>She doesn’t drink a lot, Finn knows that, so it shouldn’t surprise him that she’s already mostly gone. Still, he gives her another one when Puck tells him to.</p><p>She has another two.</p><p>Then Finn gets a phone call. “Shit,” He says, “I have dinner with my Mom. I forgot.” He looks at Quinn, “Can you get home?”</p><p>It’s a stupid question when she’s slumped on the couch barely able to lift her head.</p><p>“Don’t worry,” Puck says, “I’ll take her home.”</p><p>“Thanks,” Is all Finn says – and then he’s gone.</p><p>And Quinn is alone.</p><p>Puck gives her another wine cooler. She shakes her head. Her arms won’t even work to lift it to her lips. She probably shouldn’t have any more.</p><p>Puck’s face is fuzzy, and suddenly it’s very close to hers. She blinks trying to get it to focus. It doesn’t. Then he’s holding the bottle to her lips, forcing her to take a few sips. She tries to push it away.</p><p>“Home,” She slurs.</p><p>He puts the bottle down and loops his arm under hers, helping her up. She can’t hold herself up, so she just hangs off him.</p><p>He leads her all the way to the stairs before she realizes he’s not going to the door. “No,” She manages to get out, “Home.”</p><p>“You need to sleep off some of the alcohol. Otherwise I’ll have to carry you inside.”</p><p>He half carries her up the stairs, leading her to his bedroom and plonking her on the bed.</p><p>She closes her eyes, preparing to sleep like Puck said.</p><p>Then she feels him lie down next to her.</p><p>Her eyes open again, and she looks at him.</p><p>Then he presses his lips against hers. She makes a noise in protest. He takes it as encouragement and kisses her again.</p><p>Her arms aren’t working, she can’t push him away, she wriggles instead trying to get him off her.</p><p>“We can’t.” Her voice sounds far away, like it’s not attached to her body.</p><p>“Have another wine cooler.” He holds the bottle up to her lips again. She presses them shut, but he pushes the bottle more forcefully, pouring the drink down her throat.</p><p>She chokes.</p><p>He waits for her to stop coughing, then kisses her again.</p><p>Her head is screaming at him to stop, but her mouth won’t say the words.</p><p>Then her whole body goes numb and limp and she just lets it happen.</p><p>She can feel Puck’s breath on her cheek. She feels pain but she’s not sure where.</p><p>At some point she blacks out. She’s not sure why, the alcohol maybe, or maybe just because she isn’t feeling anything at all.</p><p>She comes back as Puck is rolling off her, he’s panting, and for a moment she doesn’t know why.</p><p>Then it hits her what just happened.</p><p>She gets up, her ears ringing.</p><p>He asks her where she’s going.</p><p>She leaves and he does follow.</p><p>She can’t feel her legs.</p><p>She stumbles down the street.</p><p>Her head is spinning, and she can’t see straight.</p><p>She vomits in the gutter.</p><p>No part of her body is listening to her brain, so she keeps walking. She doesn’t know where she’s going but she keeps walking.</p><p>Eventually she sits down on the curb.</p><p>She doesn’t know what time she left Puck’s, or how long she sits there for. Just that when she left it was pitch black, and now the sun is rising.</p><p>She stays there until a kid rides his bike past.</p><p>She looks up, blinking as the sun hits her face.</p><p>She doesn’t know where she is.</p><p>“Quinn?” Someone asks.</p><p>She doesn’t acknowledge her name.</p><p>“Quinn are you okay?”</p><p>She turns her head and makes eye contact with Rachel Berry.</p><p>“Fine.” She mumbles.</p><p>Then she gets up and walks in the direction she thinks her house is.</p><p>Rachel doesn’t follow her.</p><p>The sun is in the middle of the sky by the time she makes it home.</p><p>She’s been gone over twenty-four hours and neither of her parents say anything as she stumbles in the door. They don’t say anything as she stands in front of them, hair falling out, tear streaks down her face, blood on the skirt of the Cheerios uniform that they saw her leaving the house wearing over twenty-four hours ago.</p><p>Neither of them notices that something horrible has just happened to their daughter.</p><p>She goes upstairs and collapses onto her bed.</p><p>She sleeps through the weekend.</p><p>When she wakes up on Monday morning, she’s still numb.</p><p>She feels absolutely nothing and it’s terrifying.    </p><p>She showers for the first time in days, she watches the blood trickle down her legs and down the drain.</p><p>She pulls on her spare Cheerios uniform. She does her makeup. She gets in the car. She goes to school.</p><p>She feels like she’s on autopilot. She smiles at the right people; glares at the other; she goes to class; she takes notes; she kisses Finn.</p><p>Puck winks at her in second period and she excuses herself to the bathroom to throw up.</p><p>Brittany throws her a strange look at lunch when she doesn’t eat anything, but she just shrugs and says she feels sick.</p><p>She does.</p><p>She doesn’t remember most of the following two months.</p><p>She feels like she’s existing outside of herself. When she talks her voice sounds detached, like she’s not speaking the words.</p><p>Nothing she does is conscious – she’s just doing what she’s supposed to do.</p><p>She’s trapped inside her brain, replaying Puck’s breathing on top of her over and over and over and over.</p><p>Just like the other thing that’s been lingering in the back of her brain since she first lay eyes on Rachel Berry, her brain knows what’s going on.</p><p>Except she can’t ignore this thing.</p><p>Well she can for a bit.</p><p>So what if she starts throwing up in the morning – she must be anemic.</p><p>So what if she feels nauseous all the time – she’s probably just not eating properly.</p><p>So what if her Cheerios uniform is just a little bit tighter than normal – she’s just bloated.</p><p>She ignores it until she can’t anymore. When she’s missed two periods and she just knows.</p><p>She calls Frannie.</p><p>Her sister picks up the phone on the second ring, “<em>What’s up Luce?</em>”</p><p>Quinn lets out a shaky breath.</p><p>“<em>Luce?</em>” Frannie asks, “<em>What’s wrong?”</em></p><p>She’s crying so hard she can’t speak.</p><p><em>“Lucy.”</em> Frannie says, voice laced with concern, <em>“Deep breaths.”</em></p><p>She follows her sister’s instructions, sucking in air.</p><p>
  <em>“Is it Dad?”</em>
</p><p>“N – no.” She chokes.</p><p>“<em>Are you sick again?”</em></p><p>“No.” Her voice shakes.</p><p>
  <em>“Then what’s wrong?”</em>
</p><p>Quinn takes a deep breath, “I think I’m pregnant.”</p><p>The line goes silent.</p><p>“Frannie?” Quinn begs, “Please don’t be mad I didn’t mean to. I didn’t even want to.”</p><p>“<em>Hey, hey, hey. Just breathe. I’m not mad.”</em></p><p>She starts sobbing again.</p><p><em>“Lucy,”</em> Frannie’s voice is hesitant<em>, “Are you sure?” </em></p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>
  <em>“Did you take a test?”</em>
</p><p>“No.”</p><p><em>“Don’t say you’re sure then,”</em> Frannie sighs, <em>“My bathroom. Top draw. Under the spare towels.”</em></p><p>Frannie stays on the line as she goes into her sister’s room, then into the bathroom, and rummages through the draw. She stays on the line as Quinn pees. They sit in silence as she waits, Frannie sets a timer.</p><p><em>“Lucy?”</em> Frannie asks, breaking the silence, <em>“What did you mean when you said you did want to?” </em></p><p>Quinn stays silent.</p><p>
  <em>“Did Finn force you? Because you need to go to the police.” </em>
</p><p>“It wasn’t Finn.” Is all she says.</p><p>Then the timer goes off.</p><p>She looks at the stick.</p><p>“Shit.” She says, then her breath catches in her throat and she lets out a choked sob.</p><p>Frannie sucks in a breath, <em>“Shit.”</em> She echoes, then louder, <em>“Fuck.”</em></p><p>Quinn keeps sobbing.</p><p><em>“Lucy it’s going to be okay.” </em>Frannie says.</p><p>They both know she’s lying.</p><p>She sinks even further into her head.</p><p>She has no control over anything she does over the next month.</p><p>She talks to Rachel Berry. Multiple times.</p><p>She pushes celibacy club agenda more than usual.</p><p>She joins Glee club.</p><p>She tells Finn because she has too. She needs help, because she actually needs to go to doctors appointments, and to pay for them.</p><p>Then the whole school knows and she just about falls apart again.</p><p>Brittany holds her up, staying at her house the whole weekend, making sure she eats and showers and stroking her hair gently, whispering to her that it’s going to be okay.</p><p>Except it’s not okay.</p><p>Because the day Finn is coming to dinner, her mother is slightly more sober than usual, and as she helps her into her dress, Quinn feels the moment she knows.</p><p>Because Judy freezes for a second. Then runs her hand over Quinn’s stomach.</p><p>She doesn’t say anything. But Quinn has a sinking feeling that everything is about to go wrong.</p><p>It does.</p><p>Finn sings that <em>stupid</em> song.</p><p>Then her father is yelling at her to get out.</p><p>He sets a timer on the microwave. Ten minutes to pack her stuff and go.</p><p>She sends Finn out to the car.</p><p>She throws her stuff into her Cheerios duffle bag. Not even taking what she really needs. She packs a few clothes – she’ll need new ones soon anyway – she packs her old diaries; she doesn’t want her parents reading them when she’s gone. She takes her old stuffed teddy bear.</p><p>Russell is waiting for her in the entry hall when she comes back downstairs.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” She whispers.</p><p>Russell slaps her across the face, and she doesn’t even flinch.</p><p>Judy won’t meet her eyes as she walks out the door.</p><p>By the time she gets to Finn’s house, there’s a bruise forming on her cheekbone, but if Finn notices it, he says nothing.</p><p>Carole Hudson, Quinn quickly decides, is one of the most wonderful people she has ever met. She accepts Quinn with open arms, making sure she gets plenty of food and rest. Except, she seems genuinely excited about the prospect of being a grandmother, and Quinn feels so guilty, she wants to crawl into a hole and disappear forever.</p><p>Then Finn finds out about Puck.</p><p>It’s the first time she’s spoken to Rachel – actually spoken to her. And she realizes that Rachel Berry, someone who she tortured, isn’t mad at her for it. Rachel - who she put through so much - isn’t broken like she is.</p><p>Quinn let the bullies break her when she was still Lucy. Rachel uses their insults to push herself to be better.</p><p>They win sectionals, but Quinn isn’t even excited, because she has to go back to the Hudson’s house and face Finn and Carole.</p><p>She just wants to get her things and go.</p><p>Finn yells at her about being a cheater and a liar.</p><p>Carole yells at him for that.</p><p>She tries to convince him to let Quinn stay.</p><p>There’s a sympathetic smile on her face, and Quinn thinks she <em>knows</em>. Knows what Puck did.</p><p>She leaves anyway. Finn is too mad at her for her to stay.</p><p>She sleeps on a park bench for two days before she caves and asks Puck if she can move in.</p><p>She feels gross every time she enters his house, sees his bedroom, sees him.</p><p>Brittany tells her she can move in with her. But Brittany’s family is too good, too pure and untainted, and she can’t burden them with her problems, so she stays at Puck’s.</p><p>Frannie calls her and tells her that Russell has shut down all of Quinn’s bank accounts so she can’t send her money. Frannie wants her to go to Texas to live with her, but neither of them has enough money to get her there. Not when their father has the power to shut down all of Frannie’s accounts too.  </p><p>She’s a mess. She’s still not fully in control of herself, and every time she steps back into Puck’s house, she feels herself losing more of herself.</p><p>She’s lying in bed the first time she feels the baby move. It scares her at first, because she doesn’t know what it is. It’s like a little flutter deep in her belly.</p><p>She freezes when she feels it, panicking for a second that something is wrong. Then it happens again, and she realizes that it’s the baby. She refuses to call it <em>her</em> baby because despite what Puck says, she knows she’s not keeping her.</p><p>She starts to cry silently. Happy tears.</p><p>It’s the first time she’s felt happy since Finn left her alone at Puck’s house months ago.</p><p>She knows in that moment, that she needs to focus on the baby. She can mope around about what’s happened to her all she wants after she gives birth. But for now, she needs to do everything she can to make sure she doesn’t screw up the life growing inside of her.</p><p>That means eating properly, even when she feels fat and gross, it means sleeping, even if it’s in Puck’s bed, it means smiling even when she feels like falling apart.</p><p>And she does fall apart several times.</p><p>She falls apart when she realizes her reputation is going down to Lucy level again.</p><p>She falls apart when she realizes she is completely and utterly alone.</p><p>She falls apart when Shelby Corcoran shows up, and Rachel gets a third parent, and Quinn remembers that hers abandoned her when she needed them the most.</p><p>Then Mercedes offers to let her move in.</p><p>She wants to say no, for the same reason she refused Brittany’s offer – she doesn’t want Mercedes, who is good and kind, to have to deal with the kind of broken problems she brings into a household.</p><p>But she doesn’t know she can take seeing Puck constantly for much longer, so she packs up her duffle bag and moves into Mercedes brother’s old room.</p><p>There’s no reason for Mercedes to help her – Quinn’s never been kind in the past. But Mercedes smiles at her and says, “You helped me when I passed out last month.”</p><p>Quinn sighs, “That’s nothing compared to this.’</p><p>Mercedes’s face softens, “Quinn,” She pauses, “Let me help you, please.”</p><p>She does.</p><p>It’s strange. Mercedes’s family is the definition of perfect and functional – nothing like what she’s used too. They’re caring and sweet, and so so kind. Mercedes’s mother packs her lunch every day and makes extra trips to the store to buy her food when she has cravings. Mercedes’s father pulls her into tight hugs and kisses her on the head when he leaves in the morning, just like he does to Mercedes.</p><p>They eat dinner as a family every night – something Quinn’s family did too, less so in the past year – but unlike Quinn’s dinner table, which was completely silent, they fill every moment with conversation. Not just basic pleasantries, but genuine conversation about their days, and their thoughts.</p><p>She thinks Mr and Mrs Jones can sense that she didn’t grow up like that. On a deeper level than the fact they knew she got kicked out. They smile at her encouragingly when she’s too quiet at dinner; or they hug her just the tiniest bit tighter when they say goodnight to her.</p><p>The one-time Mr Jones gets mad, is when Mercedes forgets to take the trash out for the third day in a row. He raises his voice slightly, and Quinn can’t help the way she flinches. She’s in the corner but he notices anyway and instantly his voice and his face soften again. He tells Mercedes not to do it again or he’ll take her phone, and that’s all he says.</p><p>Quinn obviously understands the concept that most kids were disciplined without violence, but it shocks her how little aggression there is in the whole interaction. Mr Jones barely spoke louder than normal and Mercedes listened – she didn’t get grounded for a small mistake, just warned.</p><p>It makes Quinn long for a childhood she never had, one full of love and trust, instead of fear and hatred.</p><p>Staying at Mercedes’s has eased some of the burden she feels about existing, makes her feel less like she’s about to break at any moment, and it gives her a lot of time to think.</p><p>She thinks a lot about her religion and her relationship with God. It’s a complicated relationship in that moment, but she still has some sort of faith that he is watching out for her.</p><p>She’d decided a long time ago that she didn’t believe in fate, or that God had some kind of divine plan for her. If he did, he wouldn’t have made her suffer to get to wherever she was supposed to be.</p><p>She doesn’t think she’s a Sinner. Not if she didn’t have a choice in the Sin.</p><p>She hasn’t been to church since she got kicked out. She’d wanted to, but everyone knew, and she didn’t want to be stared at more than she already was – judged for something she had no say in.</p><p>Still, as someone who was raised with a firm belief in God and the Bible, she can’t shake that belief completely. She likes her faith, it’s a part of who she is, who she’s always been – a part of Lucy and Quinn.</p><p>Sure, she doesn’t have a strict idea of who you need to be to be accepted by God – not like her father did. She likes to think that the God she believes in loves everyone – unless they did something truly awful, not just made a mistake.</p><p>At some point in the last few weeks of her pregnancy she reconciles this relationship. She spends a lot of time at the Jones’s family computer, usually in the middle of the night when she’s too uncomfortable to sleep.</p><p>She does research into reconnecting with your faith after something happens to shake it, or you do something that might be considered a Sin.</p><p>There are a lot of websites on repentance and confession. She bypasses those.</p><p>Instead she reads the websites about acceptance – about loving yourself even when you feel like you shouldn’t. There’s a lot of websites about putting yourself first, overcoming who you think you should be, and just being who you are.</p><p>She reads a lot about moving your focus away what other’s think of you – as one websites says, when you love yourself for who you are, those who really love you will still love you.</p><p>That makes her cry again, because who she is now isn’t even who she is going to be, and her parents have already abandoned her.</p><p>As she reads, she has a feeling somewhere deep inside her, that reading this is preparing her for something else. Something that hasn’t happened yet but will.</p><p>It makes her cry even harder. Even though she doesn’t know why – that part in the back of her brain does.</p><p>That’s how Mercedes’s finds her two hours later, alone in the dark, tear stained face illuminated by the glow of the computer screen. She just leans against her and wraps her up in a tight hug and lets her cry until she has no tears left.</p><p>She wakes up the next morning feeling like she finally has a grasp on the version of God she believes in.</p><p>Her God isn’t a higher being who makes decisions for her, and judges her for her Sins.</p><p>Her God is all around her, in the people He sends her to take care of her when the people who are supposed to fail her.</p><p>He is everywhere and everything.</p><p>He is the love she needs so desperately.</p><p>In her mind, the only people he fails are people who do bad things deliberately.</p><p>People like Puck.</p><p>She still hasn’t told anyone what happened.</p><p>Maybe because she can’t even properly admit it to herself.</p><p>She wakes up on the morning of regionals to a sharp pain in her lower back and stomach. She’s been getting them a lot recently, Mrs Jones says it’s her body getting ready.</p><p>The whole day she feels awful, she’s getting the pains way more than usual, and she feels just about ready to collapse when it’s time for them to take the stage.</p><p>In hindsight, she probably should have known what was happening, but she was also probably in denial because it was a month before it was supposed to happen.</p><p>Then her mother is standing in front of her.</p><p>“Quinnie,” She says.</p><p>And Quinn wants nothing more than to fall into her mother’s arms and cry.</p><p>Except her water chooses that moment to break. And she’s hit with the reality of the situation.</p><p>It’s strange, how after so many months of feeling abandoned by Judy, she craves her contact so desperately. She thought she’d reconciled the fact that she’d been left alone. But the moment her mother is there again she just needs to touch her and make sure she’s really there.</p><p>She’s also in an incredible amount of pain – Jesus, it hurts so much more than she thought it would, seriously, there’s no words to describe how bad it is. Her natural response to the pain is to want her mother to hold her and take it away.</p><p>Then the pain is gone and there’s nothing but her and her baby. And she’s beautiful. The most perfect thing Quinn has ever seen. She’s tiny, but so, so perfect.</p><p>Quinn doesn’t quite understand how something so perfect can come from something so horrible. How someone as broken as her could create something beautiful.</p><p>And she was never planning on keeping her, but now she’s here, and Quinn doesn’t ever want to let her go.</p><p>Judy tells her she can keep her, she considers it.</p><p>Then Puck says he wants to keep her.</p><p>And Quinn can’t, because she doesn’t want her daughter anywhere near Puck, doesn’t want her raised by a mother who can’t look at her father without having flashbacks to hot breath on her neck, and feeling like she’s going to throw up.</p><p>Shelby offers, and Quinn agrees, because she’d rather her daughter – Beth – be with someone she knows, even if she doesn’t know her well.</p><p>Puck doesn’t show up for the handover, and Quinn is grateful.</p><p>She sobs as she holds Beth for the last time.</p><p>“Hey,” Shelby says, “You can come visit anytime.”</p><p>Quinn doesn’t know if she’ll be able to handle that. She nods anyway.</p><p>Then she hands Beth to Shelby and watches her walk away.</p><p>Then she’s in the car and her mother is driving her home.</p><p>Then she’s in her bedroom, things still scattered across the floor from when she left in a hurry.</p><p>Then she’s completely alone again.</p><p>At fifteen, she’s Quinn Fabray.</p><p>She has a Mom and a sister.</p><p>She’s a not good Christian girl, because there’s no such thing.</p><p>She knows you don’t have to follow God to be a good person.</p><p>She knows her father doesn’t love her.</p><p>She’s not perfect.</p><p>She was sick, but she’s better now.</p><p>She got hurt, but no one knows.</p><p>She got out, but she came back.</p><p>She has a daughter, but she’s not a mother.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>If you'd like to listen to the playlist I listened to while writing this:<br/>https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3OEvdk9H26Gm4eaybONznB?si=vdtp9YTaRbihNmlQYakEGw</p><p>Please leave kudos/comment your thoughts I greatly appreciate it!!</p><p>Until next time.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. crying in the bathroom, tried to figure it out</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The next moment, Quinn simply considers ‘The Summer After Beth’. That’s exactly what it is, the summer after her heart gets ripped out and trampled on – the summer she falls apart again, even worse than before.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi everyone!<br/>Welcome back!! As always please read the trigger warnings for this chapter below and don't read if you think you'll be triggered in any way, stay safe!!<br/>A big thank you to Charlie (@slayerprescott on twitter and iknowplaces on ao3) for being my editor/proofreader, I couldn't do it without you!!<br/>I hope you all enjoy. </p><p>TRIGGER/CONTENT WARNINGS:<br/>- Eating disorders.<br/>- Religion.<br/>- Child abuse (both verbal and physical).<br/>- Bullying.<br/>- Homophobia.<br/>- Underage drinking<br/>- Implied/referenced rape.<br/>- Implied/referenced self-harm.<br/>- Suicide attempts/referenced suicide attempts.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next moment, Quinn simply considers ‘The Summer After Beth’. That’s exactly what it is, the summer after her heart gets ripped out and trampled on – the summer she falls apart again, even worse than before.</p><p>Several significant things happen over the course of the summer.</p><p>The first is the transformation of Judy Fabray.</p><p>Something about actually losing her daughter for a period of time seems to have snapped some sense back into her mother.</p><p>She stops drinking completely. Drags Quinn into the kitchen two days after her return and makes her watch as she pours all the alcohol in the house, before pulling her into a hug, crying and apologizing over and over.</p><p>She gets Frannie and a team of the best divorce lawyers in the state on her side, and completely separates herself from Russell Fabray.</p><p>She’d pulled Quinn aside before starting the case, and asked if she’d be okay with making a statement about his physical and verbal abuse. She didn’t want him charged with anything, but she knew it would help their case.</p><p>Quinn agreed, as long as she didn’t talk about Quinn’s nose. That would be too close to people finding out about Lucy.</p><p>It works and Judy wins the case. They get to keep the house, they get sixty percent of the money in the family bank account, that until that day, Russell had had complete control over.</p><p>He moves to Chicago, and Quinn hopes that she never sees him again.</p><p>Quinn thinks the only thing that stops her from completely falling over the edge that summer is the presence of her mother.</p><p>They have Russell’s money, but it’s not enough for Judy to live off forever. So, she goes out and gets a job for the first time in her life.</p><p>Quinn’s surprised by her mother’s ambition, but then again, she’s been living under Russell’s wing since she was twenty, and she can’t imagine the freedom she must feel finally being able to do things she wants without permission with her husband.</p><p>So, not only does Judy get a job as a receptionist at a real estate company in Westerville – she also starts going to business classes at Lima Community College, she wants to rise higher, get management positions.</p><p>It’s strange how her mother is home a lot less, but she’s more <em>there</em> than she ever has been.</p><p>She works nine to five, five days a week. She takes evening and weekend classes.</p><p>She’s only home after eight pm and on Sundays. But when she’s home, she’s present – she asks Quinn about her day, she checks in on her. They talk and hug, and it’s everything Quinn had seen when she was at the Jones’s and wished for herself.</p><p>The problem is Quinn has learnt to internalize all of her issues over the years – she’s a master at hiding her struggles. And with Judy not home most of the time, she misses a lot of the signs that Quinn is falling again.</p><p>Quinn sleeps the entire first two weeks after Beth. She’s not actually asleep the whole time, but she spends the days in bed, curled up under the covers. When she’s not sleeping, she’s crying, craving her daughter, wanting to hold her – but not being able too.</p><p>It doesn’t help that her body is still covered in the evidence of Beth.</p><p>Which brings her to her next problem.</p><p>She feels trapped in her body, that was a home for a baby for eight months. A baby that she doesn’t have. A baby that will never be <em>hers</em>.</p><p>She doesn’t want to forget about Beth or pretend she never happened. But she wants to stop feeling like Beth belongs to her.</p><p>She can’t really do anything about some of the evidence except wait for it go away.</p><p>So, she focuses on the aspect she can fix.</p><p>The baby weight.</p><p>And, for the third time in her life; she stops eating.</p><p>This time there’s no one there to notice. Judy is working, she’s not at school. She hasn’t seen anyone from McKinley since they came in to meet Beth three weeks ago.</p><p>She knows some of them have tried to contact her. Mercedes, Santana and Brittany have all been blowing up her phone with texts and calls. She ignored them until her voicemail box was full and she couldn’t receive any more.</p><p>She knows Brittany knocked on her door for a full ten minutes the day after that, but she didn’t answer.</p><p>She wants to be alone as she feels.</p><p>She can’t bring herself to interact with anyone except her mother.</p><p>She feels fat and gross, and the voices have returned when she looks in the mirror.</p><p>Her brain yells at her to exercise, but her body won’t do it. She doesn’t want to go outside; she doesn’t want people to see her.</p><p>She feels so exhausted most of the time anyway, she just wants to lie in bed.</p><p>Judy gets home late enough that she can ‘be in bed’ when she arrives. She leaves early enough that she can still be asleep when she leaves.</p><p>She has no idea that Quinn doesn’t move. Doesn’t eat, or drink water, or shower. Just lies there.</p><p>She’s gone back to being numb. This time there’s no autopilot this time though. She’s just existing inside her own head, nothing but her thoughts just swirling around in her brain.</p><p> There’s a new voice in her head now, yelling at her that she’s lazy and disgusting when she doesn’t move for a full forty-eight hours.</p><p>This voice mixes with the one that calls her fat.</p><p>Then she realizes she’s starving, - she hasn’t eaten since Tuesday. It’s Saturday.</p><p>She does the only thing she knows how to do. She goes downstairs to the kitchen; she eats half the pantry. Then she throws it right back up.</p><p>She hates that it makes her feel better.</p><p>But it makes her feel better.</p><p>So, she does it the next day. And the next day. And the day after that.</p><p>It makes her head clearer. It’s a routine, a system to take her mind off the gaping hole in her heart.</p><p>It makes her function enough to get out of bed and shower.</p><p>It makes her function enough to leave the house to go on runs.</p><p>And so, she runs, and runs, and runs.</p><p>She’s running away from her problems, from her brain and her thoughts.</p><p>She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s starting to run away from life.</p><p>When she arrives home from her run one Friday afternoon at the very start of July, Brittany is sitting her on her doorstep. She stands up as Quinn approaches</p><p>“Hi,” Quinn says, slightly breathless.</p><p>“Hi,” Brittany replies. She doesn’t say anything about the fact that Quinn has ignored her all summer so far, she just hands her an envelope. “An invite,” She explains, “To Santana’s birthday party next weekend.”</p><p>Quinn takes the invite, “Thanks.”</p><p>They stand there in silence for a minute.</p><p>“Do you want to come in?”</p><p>Brittany nods and Quinn unlocks the door, holding it open for her friend. She leads Brittany into the kitchen.</p><p>“How are you?” Brittany asks.</p><p>Quinn shrugs, “I’m alright.”</p><p>Brittany raises her eyebrows but doesn’t say anything. “Are you going to come to Santana’s party?”</p><p>“Probably.”</p><p>“It’s a pool party,” Brittany clarifies, “But you don’t have to swim if you don’t want.”</p><p>Quinn shrugs, knowing there’s no way she’s putting on a swimsuit. “Who else is going?”</p><p>“Just glee club.”</p><p>Quinn nods.</p><p>They sit in silence for a few more minutes, then Brittany says, “Quinn?”</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“I’m here if you need to talk about anything.”</p><p>Quinn feels the back of her throat start burning like she’s going to cry, “Thanks.”</p><p>Brittany continues, “I know you’re not okay right now, even if you say you are.” She smiles, bright and warm, “I just want you to know that I love you, and San does too,” Her smiles fades for a second, “We’ll help you if you need.”</p><p>She has no idea what to say to that, so she just nods.</p><p>Brittany pulls her into a tight hug. Then she leaves, and Quinn stands in that spot until her mother gets home four hours late and asks what’s she doing.</p><p>She makes up a story about having just finished eating and goes back to bed.</p><p>She shows up to Santana’s party a whole hour late, mostly because she laid in bed until after it had started trying to will herself to get up.</p><p>Then she’d had to shower, and find clothes to wear.</p><p>She forces herself into one of her old baby doll dresses, resisting the urge to show up in sweats that hide her whole body.</p><p>The dress clings to her stomach, which makes her insides churn and her brain yell.</p><p>It’s a Sunday, so she asks Judy to drop her off. Her mother seems glad that she’s getting out of the house, and a few minutes later she’s getting out of the car in front of Santana’s house.</p><p>She can hear chatter and music coming from the backyard. She could probably just enter through the back gate, but she isn’t quite ready to see everyone yet. She rings the doorbell instead.</p><p>Maribel Lopez answers, smiling widely at her. She gestures for her to make her way through to the backyard.</p><p>It’s at that moment that she realizes she hasn’t brought anything with her. She doesn’t have a gift for Santana. She didn’t even remember to grab her phone before she left the house.</p><p>She feels exposed as she walks outside, everyone turning to look at her.</p><p>“Hey Quinn.” Brittany calls out.</p><p>She smiles back.</p><p>Santana climbs out of the pool to greet her, “Hi Q.”</p><p>“Hi,” Quinn replies, “Happy Birthday.” She shifts awkwardly, “I’m sorry I don’t have a gift, I’ll get you something, I promise… I just didn’t get a chance to get one.”</p><p>Santana squeezes her arm, “It’s fine.”</p><p>Quinn thinks Brittany probably told her, maybe not all of it. But Santana has some kind of clue that Quinn isn’t as put together as she seems.</p><p>She smiles gratefully at Santana, and then looks around for a place to sit.</p><p>Of course, the only available seat happens to be next to Rachel. Her stomach clenches at the sight of her. She shakes it off and sits down.</p><p>It’s not too bad, if she ignores the fact that she’d literally rather be anywhere else. No one else talks to her, and she doesn’t talk to them, instead just watching them swim around the pool, splashing one another and talking loudly.</p><p>At some point Santana’s mother brings out pizza and everyone dries themselves off and grabs slices, laughing and eating. Quinn awkwardly stays in her seat as everyone settles around her, plates in their laps.</p><p>No one seems to notice that she doesn’t grab any, except for Brittany, who glances at her worriedly, then whispers something in Santana’s ear. Santana frowns, but doesn’t say anything.</p><p>It’s a few minutes after that when <em>it happens</em>. All of the other glee kids are preparing to get back in the pool, and Puck looks over at her.</p><p>They make eye contact and her stomach lurches.</p><p>“Not swimming?” He asks.</p><p>She shrugs, “I didn’t feel like it.”</p><p>“Didn’t want to show off your hot Mama body?”</p><p>Her stomach drops and she feels like throwing up, “Not really, no.”</p><p>By this point everyone except Santana, who is picking up discarded plates, have moved away. Puck smirks, “You didn’t have a problem showing it off that night last summer.”</p><p>She sucks in a deep breath, then scoffs. Her brain doesn’t make the conscious decision to say the words, but she does anyway, “Like you gave me a choice,” She practically snarls.</p><p>Santana freezes, halfway through kneeling down. Quinn freezes too – it’s the first time she’s ever admitted it out loud.</p><p>Puck clearly didn’t expect her to say that either, because he just stares at her for a minute, “Don’t say that,” He says, “You could’ve stopped me.”</p><p>She scoffs again, “I was so drunk I couldn’t stand or speak, how exactly was I supposed to stop you?”</p><p>He clearly doesn’t quite know what to say to this, which is why he apparently settles with, “You didn’t even make a noise or anything.”</p><p>“Because I was unconscious for most of it, or don’t you remember the part where I blacked out.” She turns away, tears already spilling down her face. “I’m gonna go - Happy Birthday, Santana.”</p><p>Santana tries to follow her, “Quinn, wait.”</p><p>Quinn keeps walking. She gets to the end of the street before she remembers she doesn’t have her phone to call her Mom to pick her up. She keeps walking.</p><p>At some point she breaks into a run – she’s not wearing the right shoes, but she keeps running anyway.</p><p>By the time she gets to her house she’s so lightheaded the world is spinning, and she thinks she might pass out. Maybe that would be a good thing, then she wouldn’t have to feel anything for a little while.</p><p>She calls out to Judy to let her know she’s home, then she heads straight for her bedroom and locks the door.</p><p>That’s when she passes out.</p><p>When she wakes up her head is throbbing. She thinks she hit it on the corner of her bed on the way down. She’s pretty sure she was only actually out for a minute or two, but she’s not entirely sure what time she left Santana’s so it might have been longer.</p><p>“Quinn?” There’s a knock at her door, “Are you okay, I heard a thump?”</p><p>She was only out for a minute then, “Yeah, Mom.” She calls out, her voice sounding distant, “I just knocked some books off my desk.”</p><p>“Okay.” She hears shuffling as her Mom walks away from her room.</p><p>Everything is spinning. She messed up.</p><p>Santana knows. Santana will push her to tell other people. She just wants it to go away.</p><p>She wishes it never happened.</p><p>She freezes.</p><p>She can’t wish that, because that’s wishing that Beth never existed, and Beth is perfect and beautiful. She needs to exist.</p><p>She needs to feel something other than the dread and guilt and deep, aching numbness.</p><p>She goes to her bathroom and tries to throw up. She hasn’t eaten so nothing comes up.</p><p><em>Shit</em>.</p><p>She can’t eat something to throw up because her mother is downstairs.</p><p>She panics. She needs to do something, anything.</p><p>She gets in the shower and turns the hot water on. It hits her shoulder and she hisses as it burns her.</p><p>She holds it there until she can’t take it anymore. She turns the cold tap on as well and lets it cool down to a regular temperature.</p><p>She starts to sob.</p><p>Then her eyes land on her razor.</p><p>No.</p><p>Except her body is doing the weird detached thing again, and she’s picked it up before she can even process her first though properly.</p><p>It’s sturdier than she thinks, because it takes all of her strength to snap the top open.</p><p>Then she’s holding the silver sliver of the blade.</p><p>Then she has four bleeding lines on her right hip.</p><p>It wasn’t a conscious decision to put them there. It works though, it’s out of sight, they mix in amongst her stretch marks.</p><p>She absolutely hates that when she goes to bed that night, her head feels slightly clearer.</p><p>It doesn’t surprise her when Santana shows up at her house the next day. She lets her in, and they sit on the end of her bed, Quinn deliberately keeping her gaze on the carpet.</p><p>“Puck denied it,” Santana says, “But I know what I heard. I believe you.”</p><p>Quinn stays silent.</p><p>“Q,” Santana says firmly, “He hurt you. You need to tell someone.”</p><p>It’s exactly what she expected, and she shakes her head, staring a piece of fuzz next to her left foot.</p><p>“Q,” Santana repeats, softer this time. “Look at me. Please.”</p><p>She forces her eyes up, meeting Santana’s. They’re wide and concerned and Quinn knows there’s no getting out of this conversation.</p><p>“If you can, I need you to tell me what happened.”</p><p>Quinn shakes her head.</p><p>“I’m not going to force you. But talking about it might help.” Santana holds her gaze, warm and fierce, “I think I’m right in assuming you’d never said it out loud before yesterday?”</p><p>She nods, then says, “Finn left.”</p><p>“On the night it happened?”</p><p>“I was already drunk when he left, so drunk I couldn’t hold myself up,” She starts crying, “Sometimes I hate him for it. I shouldn’t, it’s not his fault.”</p><p>Santana nods encouragingly.</p><p>Her voice lowers to a whisper, “Sometimes I think it’s my fault. I was the one who kept accepting drinks,” Her voice cracks, “I should have stopped.”</p><p>Santana shakes her head, “No, Q. This isn’t your fault. Puck’s the only one to blame, he’s the only one who did anything wrong, you hear me. It’s not your fault.”</p><p>Quinn feels like she’s going to throw up. She runs into the bathroom. Doesn’t even kneel down, just hovers.</p><p>Except just like yesterday, there’s nothing to throw up.</p><p>She shoves her fingers down her throat needing whatever is making the pit of her stomach feel so heavy to get <em>out</em>.</p><p>Her head is spinning.</p><p>She retches, once, twice.</p><p>Then she passes out.</p><p>She hears Santana’s calling out her name, but it sounds far away, like she’s underwater. She’s vaguely aware of a throbbing on the side of her head, but her limbs feel like lead and she can’t lift them to feel what’s wrong.</p><p>She flutters her eyelids open, and although it looks like she’s seeing Santana through a red haze, she can make out her friend kneeling over her, talking into her phone.</p><p>Santana looks down and sees her eyes open. Her lips move, but Quinn can’t hear what she’s saying.</p><p>Then everything goes black.</p><p>She comes too in the same hospital bed she awoke in when she passed out at gymnastics when she was thirteen.</p><p>This time, Santana and her mother are both next to her.</p><p>There’s someone else, but they’re out of her field of vision – she can sense them though and thinks she can feel them touching her head.</p><p>Santana notices she’s awake first, she taps Judy who looks down at her daughter and bursts into tears immediately.</p><p>Quinn doesn’t answer any of the questions the doctor asks her this time. The same ones as before – Judy and Santana fill in spots when they can, but she’s not giving them anything.</p><p>She just wants to sleep.</p><p>She hears the doctor say something about Bulimia and relapse – she sees Santana’s eyebrows raise at that. She hears the doctor continue to talk about Postpartum Depression and self-inflicted harm.</p><p>Twenty-four hours later her mother’s car is pulling away from a psychiatric facility in Columbus, and Quinn is all alone.</p><p>Except she’s not alone, because she’s considered a danger to herself, so she has a one on one nurse who sits in the corner of her room and watches her when she goes to the bathroom.</p><p>She doesn’t leave her bed for the first two days. She just wants to sleep.</p><p>Except, she’s in the kind of place that has rules she has to follow if she wants to get better.</p><p>She really just wants to stop feeling altogether.</p><p>Her one on one the second night looks at her sadly and says, “You’ll never get better if you don’t want to get better.”</p><p>She thinks it’s stupid because <em>she</em> doesn’t want to get better – she’s not even sure what the point is anymore.</p><p>It’s the thought of her mother that makes her try though. The look on her mother’s face when she woke up in the hospital, her mother’s sniffles the whole drive to Columbus. Because she knows by that look that her mother needs her to stay here.</p><p>She forces herself to get out of bed on the third day. Her one on one smiles encouragingly at her as she enters the bathroom – supervised of course – then heads to breakfast.</p><p>This facility has an eating disorder unit as well, but based on the recommendations of the doctor at the hospital, and some debate when she was checking in; it was decided that she would be placed in the main unit, as it was her other mental health issues that were ultimately at the root of her relapse.</p><p>Her meal intake however, will still be recorded.</p><p>She sits down at a table with two of the girls and gets her food placed in front of her. She winces at how full the plate is but picks up her fork anyway.</p><p>She stabs a piece of apple.</p><p>Then stares at it for two minutes. She lifts the fork.</p><p>It hovers in front of her face for another minute.</p><p>She finally convinces herself to put it in her mouth. It sits on her tongue and she holds it there for a while, trying not to think about the number of calories or how long it will take to burn them off. She chews very slowly, but eventually she swallows it.</p><p>She wants to throw up, but she forces herself to level out her breathing, and stabs another piece of apple.</p><p>It takes her nearly thirty minutes to eat five pieces. She knows they time food sessions, and she panics for a moment, thinking that she’ll get marked as ‘incomplete’ and she’ll have to stay here even longer.</p><p>Everyone else is already finished, or almost finished – bar one or two other people.</p><p>Her panic must be evident on her face because one of the nurses who is standing in the corner near her walks over and sits down next to her on the bench.</p><p>“Hi,” She says, “Quinn isn’t it?”</p><p>Quinn nods.</p><p>“Don’t worry about whether the other’s have finished or not. I know they have scheduled mealtimes, but what’s most important is that you finish your meal – not how long it takes.”</p><p>Quinn looks up and meets the nurse’s eyes, she looks strangely familiar but she can’t quite place where she knows her from. “Thanks.”</p><p>The nurses eyes flicker with recognition too, and she frowns like she is also trying to place Quinn in her mind. “Did you go to St Johns Catholic Church in Fairbrook?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“Oh,” The nurse laughs, “I’m Evie. We used to eat in the Sunday School room together.”</p><p>It takes Quinn a second to process this, “Oh my God.”</p><p>Evie grins, “Small world, huh.”</p><p>Quinn feels slightly uncomfortable, seeing as she is Evie’s patient, and Evie knew her as Lucy. But she didn’t bring Lucy up, which gives Quinn the confidence to simply reply, “Yeah.”</p><p>“Do you still go there?”</p><p>Quinn frowns, “To church? No, I haven’t been in months.”</p><p>Evie nods, but doesn’t question it further – something Quinn is grateful for. “How’s Frannie and your parents?”</p><p>“Frannie’s good – she lives in Texas with her husband. My Mom is good, she just got a new job.”</p><p>If Evie notices her deliberate choice to leave out her father, she doesn’t mention it.</p><p>They make more small talk, and Quinn only realizes she’s finished her plate of food when she goes to scoop eggs onto her spoon and there’s none left. She grins at Evie, and Evie winks back.</p><p>She realizes a few hours later that Evie had deliberately been distracting her as she ate.</p><p>The schedule in the psych ward is hard for her to get used to. There are rules, more rules than she’s ever had in her house, and everything is supervised – she can’t talk to someone without a nurse leaning over to listen to make sure they’re not talking about a restricted topic.</p><p>She mostly keeps to herself.</p><p>Her mother calls on the third night, and cries into the receiver the whole time, apologizing and telling Quinn she just wants her to get better.</p><p>The pure heartbreak in her mother’s voice makes Quinn determined to focus on her recovery. Being here is something of a wake-up call for her – she’s so used to feeling pain, that she forgot there was a way to exist without it.</p><p>She wants to find a way to exist like that again.</p><p>One of the first things her counsellor – they’re not allowed to call them therapists, because it ‘sounds too professional’ – tells her, is that they have a rule at the facility that all patients have to learn a ‘special skill.’</p><p>There are obviously limits to what they can do, but it has to be something they dedicate an hour a day to learning and practicing. Some people pick art, or gardening, some even pick coding, and use the tiny computer lab to practice.</p><p>There’s a small music room in the facility, and Quinn decides to learn piano. It’s something that she might actually be able to use when she gets out of here, in glee club.</p><p>There’s already a small collection of sheet music in the music room for that purpose, and the keyboard has little stickers on all the keys telling her what note it is.</p><p>She spends the first two days learning what keys are what and practicing scales.</p><p>She finds she actually loves piano – it’s a respite from everything else happening within the facility. When she’s had a terrible day because they served ice cream at lunch – which is one of her worst trigger foods – or because she was forced to talk about Beth or Puck in group, she always had that one hour in the evening to go to the music room, plug her headphones into the keyboard and practice.</p><p>She starts spending more time in there, whenever an activity isn’t mandatory, or she has free time, she heads to the music room. Occasionally there are other people in there, but no one else is using the keyboard, so she practices, and practices.</p><p>It’s not until three weeks into her stay that she realizes how much better she actually feels. She’s not one hundred percent better, but she doesn’t struggle as much during meals, and the terrifying numbness and willingness to fade into nothing have settled onto a backburner in her brain instead of being at the forefront.</p><p>She feels odd being here.</p><p>She’s so disconnected to the outside world – she hasn’t spoken to anyone other than her mother in weeks – but at the same time she feels more connected to the world around her. She spent her sixteenth birthday here, and the only person she spoke to was her mom – she knows there’s more messages on her phone at home, but she can’t see them.</p><p>She can’t quite explain it, but she’s more aware of <em>everything</em>.</p><p>She’s aware of herself. The way her heart beats; the rise and fall of her chest when she breathes; the way things feel when she touches the; the color things; how things sound.</p><p>She’s aware of other’s too. The differences in their eye color; the way their faces look; the different things that make them themselves.</p><p>She wonders if other people are normally aware of all of these things and she’s just been too caught up in her own head for the past few years to notice. On the other hand, she thinks that this is something she does because she’d been caught up in her own brain.</p><p>One thing she notices while doing this, is that no matter what she always finds beauty in other people. The other kids in this unit are broken just like her, but they seem so much more beautifully broken. Like they’re a pretty vase that shattered, but the individual pieces are still painted with flowers, while she’s just an ordinary glass, useless once broken.</p><p>This is what makes her realize that the way she sees herself is so different from the way other people see her.</p><p>And the moment she realizes that, she understands that she needs to get better, completely. Not just enough to keep existing for her mother, but enough to see herself as beautiful again.</p><p>She knows in that moment that when she sees herself like that, she’ll be happy.</p><p>And really, happiness is all she’s ever wanted.</p><p>She get discharged after thirty days – two days before the start of Junior year.</p><p>It’s the day after the one year anniversary of <em>that</em> night.</p><p>She feels awful all day, her brain replaying the night over and over.</p><p>She spends two extra hours with her therapist.</p><p>She spends the rest of the day playing the keyboard, trying to erase the memories from her brain.</p><p>Dinner that night is the worst mealtime she’s had since the first week.</p><p>But she makes it through.</p><p>It’s enough of an accomplishment that she wakes up the next day feeling good – she’s going home, and if she can make it through yesterday, she can keep going.</p><p>At sixteen, she’s Quinn Fabray</p><p>She has a Mom and a sister.</p><p>She’s not a good Christian girl, because there’s no such thing.</p><p>She knows you don’t have to follow God to be a good person.</p><p>She knows her father doesn’t love her.</p><p>She’s not perfect.</p><p>She’s still sick, but she’s getting better.</p><p>She got hurt, people know, people are helping.</p><p>She got out, but she came back.</p><p>She has a daughter, but she’s not a mother.</p><p>She needs to keep existing.</p><p> </p><p>--------</p><p> </p><p>A lot of moments happen during Junior year.</p><p>The significant ones have to do with her friends – some new, some old – and her recovery.</p><p>The most important one has everything to do with Rachel Berry.</p><p>She goes back to school on the first day like nothing has happened. Like she wasn’t in a psychiatric facility for a month. Like everything collapsed, but she’s building it back up again.</p><p>At school, things are largely the same. She gets her Cheerios uniform back. She gets attacked by Santana – which she knows is because Santana is mad at her for collapsing in front of her and scaring the shit out of her. She goes to glee.</p><p>But, outside of school, everything is completely different.</p><p>For starters, Judy has cut her hours down dramatically. She drops one of her classes so she can spend most Saturdays at home and starts opting to watch the recordings of her lectures instead of attending the evening classes.</p><p>Secondly, either Santana, Brittany, or both, come home with her after school every day and stay until Judy gets home from work.</p><p>It feels a little bit like she’s back to having one on ones at the hospital, but she’s grateful that her mother and friends care enough.</p><p>She feels guilty that everyone has had to shift their life just to help her.</p><p>She voices this guilt to Brittany one day, and her friend looks at her with wide eyes, “Quinn, Santana and I wanted to do this. We need you to be okay.”</p><p>On the first day that Santana stay with her alone, she pulls Quinn into a tight hug. “Don’t ever do that again, okay?” She says, her voice strained, “I thought you died, Q.”</p><p>Quinn can tell she’s crying, and she pulls her closer, whispering, “I’m sorry.” Over and over.</p><p>One afternoon, Brittany and Santana both have to go to Brittany’s sister’s soccer game. Quinn expects to have the house to herself, and she’s slightly nervous to be alone. Not because she thinks she’ll do anything, just because she could, and no one would know.</p><p>But fifteen minutes after she gets home there’s a knock at the front door. She opens it slightly nervously, worried that it might be someone she doesn’t want to see.</p><p>Mercedes smiles at her from the other side. “Hi,” She says.</p><p>Quinn lets her in, now worried that someone told Mercedes what happened. But Mercedes doesn’t ask her why she didn’t talk to her all summer, or why she’s been ignoring her at school. Instead, she just launches into a description of absolutely everything that has happened to her in the past three months.</p><p>The only time she lets on that she knows something is up is just before Judy gets home, when she says, “I don’t know what happened Quinn, but I love you a lot and I know you’ll be okay.”</p><p>Quinn smiles softly, “Thanks.”</p><p>They don’t mention it again.</p><p>She also starts going to therapy weekly. She drives to Westerville every Tuesday afternoon to go to the children’s medical facility, where they have just about every kind of child therapist you could imagine.</p><p>The psychologist wing is on the opposite side of the third floor to the elevators, which means she gets to walk past several waiting areas and kids running up and down the hallway.</p><p>It makes her sad and happy at the same time. The third floor houses the psychology unit, the speech unit and the hearing unit. As she walks past the other waiting areas, she knows some of the kids are just there because they have lisps, but others have much more serious conditions.</p><p>She sees the will to live in these tiny children’s eyes, and it makes her wonder how kids who have faced so much can want to keep fighting, when she sometimes wants to give up altogether.</p><p>She’s the oldest person she’s seen there so far. Or at least the people who are her age look a lot younger in this environment. She wonders if she looks younger too.</p><p>She doesn’t feel younger.</p><p>If anything, she feels like she aged too early. Like she’s experienced things ten years before she was supposed to.</p><p>She likes going to therapy though. Which is not a sentence she ever thought would come from her.</p><p>Her therapist’s name is Julia, and she doesn’t seem like an authority figure to Quinn, not like the therapists in Columbus. She seems like a real human being. She’s calm and friendly friendly – she also doesn’t seem insanely happy all the time, she has days where she seems tired or annoyed or even a little bit. Those human moments make Quinn feel comfortable, like she can open up.</p><p>She doesn’t tell her everything at first.</p><p>They start with the things that are easier for her to speak about.</p><p>They talk about why she ended up in Columbus. They talk about her eating disorder, which subsequently leads to a conversation about Lucy, which leads them into Russell Fabray and his abuse – verbal and physical.</p><p>This leads into the topics Quinn doesn’t want to talk about. But they build up to it.</p><p>They discuss Russell kicking her out. They talk about her pregnancy. They talk about Beth and giving her away.</p><p>Finally, they talk about Puck and what happened <em>that</em> night.</p><p>Quinn cries a lot in their sessions<em>. </em>She cries because she’s more broken then she thought she was. But also because despite how broken she is, she feels Julia helping her put herself back together again.</p><p>She’s gluing the pieces of Quinn back together. Sewing the seams so she doesn’t fall apart again.</p><p>It’s working, because she feels more stable then she has in years. She doesn’t feel like there’s one thing that’s going to make her fall apart.</p><p>Another thing that Julia wants her to work on is her connection and trust of others. That trust has been broken so many times that she struggles to open up when she’s vulnerable.</p><p>It’s true.</p><p>Julia tells her she needs to build up to telling her friends about her struggles. They’re going to work together on her having the confidence to tell Judy what happened with Puck.</p><p>Julia wants her to try and get closer with people – make new friends, build back the trust she lost a long time again.</p><p>Which is how Sam Evans happens.</p><p>She knows he wants to date her, and she doesn’t want to date him.</p><p>But she wants to follow Julia’s advice and try to open up more, so she lets him teach her how to play a song on the guitar. She even lets him take her on a few dates.</p><p>The problem is she actually likes him. Just not in the way he likes her.</p><p>She thinks he’s funny and lovely – but she wants to be his friend, not his girlfriend.</p><p>She tells Julia this.</p><p>Julia tells her open communication is important and she needs to tell Sam how she feels.</p><p>It makes her feel horrible, but she does.</p><p>She’s surprised when Sam doesn’t get mad at her. Maybe it’s because she holds her dating standards to Finn, but she didn’t expect him to take the news so well.</p><p>Sure, he’s a bit upset, but he’s not angry at her, he just shrugs and says, “You can’t help if you don’t have feelings for me.”</p><p>She expects him to stop talking to her after that, but he doesn’t. He actively pursues a friendship with her. At first, she thinks he just wants to try and get back together with her, but no. He values her as a person and not just a piece of arm candy, and he actually wants to get to know her.</p><p>It’s so different to what she’s used to, she feels like crying. Because that’s how men should act – not the way she was taught by Russell, where women were to be seen and not heard; their interests ignored; their job to look after their husbands.</p><p>Julia smiles when she informs her of this development. “See,” She says, “You did it, you opened yourself up and you learnt something new.”</p><p>Quinn thinks she’s learning to trust again.</p><p>Sam becomes a part of her ‘babysitters’ as she likes to affectionately call them – Santana grumbles every time. He doesn’t know why she needs someone with her always, but he accepts it without explanation.</p><p>He’s allocated to Friday afternoons, because Santana and Brittany usually have a sleepover that day, and Mercedes goes to Kurt’s house.</p><p>The first few weeks he comes over to her house, and they talk and do homework. After that she starts going to his house. They play video games, which is oddly similar to what Finn used to do, except unlike Finn, Sam actually wants to play with her and takes the time to teach her how to use the controllers, and goes back to earlier levels to let her practice.</p><p>It’s not her favorite thing to do – sometimes she still sits to the side and reads while Sam plays – but she does enjoy the friendship she has with him and appreciates the fact he was willing to teach her.</p><p>She quits Cheerios – chooses glee over her popularity.</p><p>Julia tells her this is a big step, not only because Cheerios negatively impacts her body image, but also because she’s chosen herself and her wants over how she wants other people to view her.</p><p>Of course, her old insecurities still plague her sometimes, which is why she gets back together with Finn.</p><p>She feels a flare of that old guilt when Rachel finds out Finn cheated on her, but she pushes it down. Her image at school is still important to her, even if she’s made steps while working with Julia.</p><p>Frannie comes to visit for Christmas break.</p><p>She brings Marcus with her, and it’s the first time Quinn has seen either of them in over a year.</p><p>Frannie holds her and cries for a little while.</p><p>Quinn lets her even if she feels very uncomfortable.</p><p>It’s amazing how easily her sister slots herself back into her life. Yes, they spoke almost every day, but it was different when she was actually there.</p><p>Quinn’s a lot more present then she has been in years – something which probably has something to do with the fact she’s finally getting help for her various mental health issues – but Frannie seems to pick up on it, and holds her just a little bit tighter.</p><p>On Christmas Day, Frannie hands her and Judy gifts to unwrap at the same time. Quinn rips the paper off hers and stares at a wooden block with the words ‘World’s Best Aunt’ inscribed on it.</p><p>It takes her a second to process what they mean, a second longer than Judy, who immediately throws herself at Frannie, pulling her into a hug.</p><p>Quinn feels her heartbreak and swell at the same time. Because Frannie’s having a baby when she doesn’t have hers, but also Frannie is having a baby she’s going to be an aunt and she’s so happy for her sister.</p><p>This seems to be something Frannie was worried about because she throws Quinn a concerned look. Quinn pushes away the heartbreak to deal with at another time and joins in the hug, kissing her sister’s cheek.</p><p>After Christmas Frannie starts calling her every single day to update her on the baby, just like Quinn had done with Beth.</p><p>It’s a ritual that should have made her sad, but it reminds Quinn how her sister has always been there; it reminds her of the good moments with Beth; it makes her happy that her sister is experiencing them at a time in her life when she can actually enjoy them.</p><p>There’s an ache left by Beth’s absence that she knows won’t ever go away. It’s something she’s talked through with Julia, about grief and losing someone – how it might get better but it won’t ever go away.</p><p>She thinks she’s okay with it, especially when she’s reminded that Beth isn’t gone forever – she’s growing up in a house in Akron, Ohio, with a mother who loves her. She knows this because Shelby had sent her an email while she was in the pysch ward, with her address enclosed, telling Quinn she could come and visit any time as long as she gave a few days’ notice.</p><p>Quinn hasn’t been yet. Part of her wants to just drive past every time she gets in her car and pull her baby close to her again. But the bigger, stronger part of her knows she isn’t ready yet. This is another thing she’s discussed with Julia, they’re taking steps, working towards it.</p><p>The first step is to email Shelby and ask for a photo of Beth.</p><p>She can’t even do that yet.</p><p>She knows Puck goes and visits Beth sometimes – she’s heard him talking about it across the choir room.</p><p>It makes her skin crawl thinking about him being near <em>her </em>baby – because she’s not his, she’s never been his – maybe he had a part in creating her, but he gave up all right to her the moment he didn’t give Quinn a choice.</p><p>She needs to focus on herself though, so she brushes aside the sick feeling in her stomach at the thought of Puck near Beth, and works on building herself back up so that one day she’ll be ready to hold her baby again.</p><p>The Rachel Berry Trainwreck Extravaganza is the first time Quinn has touched alcohol since <em>that </em>night.</p><p>She isn’t planning on drinking – in fact she’s vowed to herself that she’d never drink a drop of alcohol again.</p><p>Then Rachel calls her <em>girlfriend</em> and something about it makes her insides squirm, and she starts drinking in order to get the weird feeling to go away.</p><p>She tells Brittany and Santana to keep an eye on her, even though they’re caught up in their own drama, she knows they’ll look out for her.</p><p>She yells at Puck. She doesn’t explicitly say what she’s thinking, but she tells him she hates him and what he did to her body. She knows everyone except Santana will assume it’s about her pregnancy, and the worried look he throws her way is worth it.</p><p>Santana and Brittany disappear sometime after spin-the-bottle, and Quinn is sober enough to notice the way Brittany’s hair is messed up at the back, and Santana lip gloss is smudged – even if no one else is.</p><p>She realizes, as everyone starts to leave that she hadn’t organized a proper way home. Finn drove her here, but he’s far too drunk for her to let him drive her home. She winces when he still gets in the car himself, despite her insistence that he shouldn’t drive.</p><p>Then she’s alone on the curb outside Rachel’s house.</p><p>She’s tipsy enough that the walk home doesn’t scare her as much as it probably should considering it’s well after midnight.</p><p>She’s thinking about how well she’s been doing recently.</p><p>She’s weaved the tiny thread holding her together into a rope, and it’s getting stronger every day. It’s become a tapestry in her brain, stitches looping together the reasons she needs to be alive and healthy – unthreading the stitches that hold together the reasons she shouldn’t to make a bigger, more beautiful picture.</p><p>It’s a concept she dwells on for the next few weeks.</p><p>She finds herself thinking about the future a lot. Where she’s going to be in ten years’ time. It’s something she’s never had to consider until recently – she’d grown up in a home where it was expected that she go to Harvard for Law and then come home and work for Russell’s business.</p><p>She doesn’t have to do that anymore. </p><p>Sometimes she still gets lost in her head and forgets that without Russell Fabray she can be whoever she wants to be. Without him she won’t become nothing, she won’t be stuck in Lima doing some mediocre job. She’s her own person and she can build herself into whoever she wants to be.</p><p>Then it’s Beth’s first birthday and she’s not with Quinn. She doesn’t know what Beth’s doing, or who she’s seeing. She doesn’t know what Beth looks like – if she looks like Quinn or like Puck – she doesn’t even really know where Beth is beyond the address she doesn’t have the guts to look up.</p><p>So, she breaks down. Not completely, she’s still somewhat in control, but she feels the control slipping away, like at any moment she could fly off the cliff again.</p><p>She lashes out at Rachel, because she needs to keep control. She lashes out because she’s scared and angry and in the midst of all that, she forgets what she can achieve – who she can be.</p><p>Because Rachel can be more than this, more than Lima. She can’t.</p><p>Except she can, Julia reminds her in their next session. There are no limits to what Quinn can do. </p><p>She apologizes to Rachel the next time she sees her.</p><p>Then Rachel decides she wants a nose job and Quinn wants to stop her.</p><p>She almost accidentally does the opposite.</p><p>Then Rachel invites her over to work on a duet.</p><p>She agrees.</p><p>She sits awkwardly on the edge of Rachel’s bed. She’s been in her house before – for the Rachel Berry Trainwreck Extravaganza – but she’s never been in her bedroom before. It’s different to what she’d expected, yet it’s so perfectly Rachel.</p><p>Her heart skips a beat when she sees a photo of herself plastered to the wall amongst a collection of other photos.</p><p>She ignores it.</p><p>Rachel closes her bedroom door, which makes Quinn’s stomach do a weird belly flop for some reason.</p><p>“So,” Rachel says, joining her on the bed, “Do you have any song ideas?”</p><p>She shakes her head, “I’m not really good at picking songs.”</p><p>“Yes, you are.”</p><p>Quinn raises her eyebrow, “You’re one who told me I sound sharp sometimes? I only sound good in duets or group numbers.”</p><p>“That’s not true,” Rachel shakes her head so forcefully Quinn worries she might hurt her neck. “You’re an amazing singer, Quinn.”</p><p>Quinn looks down at her feet awkwardly, “Thanks.”</p><p>Rachel gets up and walks to her desk, pulling out a small folder of sheet music, “I have a few ideas.”</p><p>She looks down at the song choices, frowning slightly, then blurts out what she really wants to say, “You’re not actually going to get the nose job? Are you?”</p><p>Rachel pulls a face, “You’re not going to try to talk me out of it are you? Because you came to the appointment with me, I thought you were supportive.”</p><p>“I just,” Quinn sighs, “I don’t think you should change anything about yourself just to meet other people’s expectations.”</p><p>“That’s easy for you to say,” Rachel raises her voice slightly.</p><p>“Why?” She’s confused now.</p><p>“Because,” Rachel says, and she sounds like she might cry, “You’re perfect. You’re beautiful and popular. You have no idea what it’s like to walk around not being conventionally beautiful. You have no idea what it’s like to wake up every morning and look like me.”</p><p>Quinn freezes, not quite knowing how to respond to that – because she does <em>know</em> – she settles with just saying, “Sure, Rachel.”</p><p>There’s an awkward silence.</p><p>Quinn flips through the songs Rachel pulled out just to give herself something to do. <em>Unpretty</em> by TLC stands out to her, and as she reads the lyrics and realizes the meaning she panics for a second, wondering if Rachel has ever felt this way.</p><p>“I had an eating disorder, you know.” She says before her mouth can catch up to her brain.</p><p>Rachel looks up, “What?”</p><p>Quinn feels very small all of sudden. “You said I’m perfect. I’m not, I’m pretty far from it.”</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>“I don’t want you to feel bad for saying that. I just wanted you to know.” Quinn pauses, “I changed myself a lot, and it didn’t fix all of my problems.”</p><p>“Oh.” Rachel repeats.</p><p>There’s another period of silence.</p><p>Quinn realizes it’s the first time she’s ever actually told anyone she had – <em>has</em>, she corrects herself, because she’s still recovering, still fights her brain every time she eats – an eating disorder. Brittany and Santana know, but she never explicitly said those words to Brittany, and Santana only knows because she was there when Quinn collapsed.</p><p>“When?” Rachel asks.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“When did you have…” Rachel trails off. “I mean,” She says more confidently, “Did I know you and completely miss the signs? Because if I did, I’m sorry.”</p><p>Quinn shakes her head, then frowns and nods. “It started a long time before you knew me. But it was still there when I knew you,” She takes a deep breath, “It’s still there sometimes.”</p><p>Rachel opens her mouth, Quinn cuts her off.</p><p>“But no, you didn’t miss the signs, because I was deliberately hiding them. Don’t blame yourself, okay? It’s no one’s fault.”</p><p>Rachel nods, “I’m still sorry. That you had to go through that. And I’m sorry I assumed you’re perfect, when it’s something you struggle with.”</p><p>Quinn shrugs, “I’m a good at pretending.”</p><p>Rachel looks like she’s contemplating something, then grabs the sheet music Quinn is still holding, putting <em>Unpretty</em> to the side and flicking through the other’s, looking for something. She pulls out another song with a small hum and then hands them both to Quinn.</p><p>The second song is <em>I Feel Pretty </em>from <em>West Side Story</em> and Quinn smiles thinking about the contrasting lyrics. “A mash-up?” She asks.</p><p>Rachel nods, “We just need to work out how to combine them.”</p><p>Quinn reads through the notes in both songs, trying to work a melody. “Do you have a piano? She asks, “Or a keyboard?”</p><p>“Yeah, it’s downstairs.”</p><p>Quinn gets up and walks out of Rachel’s room, heading for the stairs. Rachel catches up with her, asking where she’s going.</p><p>She locates the piano in the living room and sits on the stool, setting the sheet music down. She reads over it one more time, then plays the melody of <em>Unpretty, </em>she’s only heard the original a few times, but she knows she’s playing it a lot slower.</p><p>Slightly self-conscious of Rachel staring at her, she starts to sing the opening lines. She sings up until the pre-chorus, then gestures to Rachel to take over. She joins in for the chorus, then brings in <em>I Feel Pretty</em>, Rachel catches on and they alternate lines, overlapping and harmonizing.</p><p>It’s far from perfect, they need to work on the actual timing of the lines. But Rachel still squeals and claps when they finish, “Quinn,” She says, “That was amazing. I didn’t know you could play the piano?”</p><p>“I learnt over the summer,” Quinn hopes Rachel doesn’t ask any more follow up questions.</p><p>They practice until Quinn’s fingers start cramping and Rachel offers to get them both a snack.</p><p>Quinn sits at the kitchen bench while Rachel chops them some fruit. She looks at Quinn a little funny as she slides the food across to her, but Quinn just smiles warmly at her.</p><p>“Thanks,” She says sincerely, popping a strawberry in her mouth, almost laughing at the way Rachel’s little frown falls away at the sight of her eating. “Hey,” She says, “I’m okay at the moment. I know I said I’m sometimes not, but I’m getting help for it, and I really am alright right now. I promise.”</p><p>“Sorry,” Rachel apologizes, “It’s just a lot, and I really want you to be alright.”</p><p>“I am.”</p><p>Quinn smiles at her again, and Rachel smiles back. Her big, proper smiles, the one that lights up her whole face. There’s something about this moment that makes Quinn’s head spin, but in a good way.</p><p>They eat in silence; Quinn smiles every time Rachel’s face lights up when she puts another piece of fruit in her mouth. Normally, that kind of behavior would annoy her, but the way Rachel does it is strangely adorable, so she doesn’t mind too much.</p><p>“Quinn?” Rachel asks after a few minutes.</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“What happened that morning just before sophomore year? When you were in front of my house?”</p><p>“What?” Quinn doesn’t know what she’s talking about.</p><p>Rachel frowns, “The morning, about two days before the start of sophomore year, when you were sitting on the curb in front of my house looking completely out of it? I asked if you were okay, but you ran away.”</p><p>Quinn has no memory of that, so she works backwards in her head. Two days before sophomore year… Oh.</p><p>“Quinn?”</p><p>“Huh?” She thinks she missed something, but Rachel is just looking at her worriedly. “Oh,” She debates telling Rachel the truth, “I think it was the morning after Puck…” She trails off.</p><p>“You think?”</p><p>“I don’t remember.”</p><p>Rachel raises her eyebrows, “You don’t remember the morning after you lost your virginity?”</p><p>Quinn visibly flinches at the <em>v-word</em>. “I don’t remember most of it.”</p><p>She sees the exact moment Rachel figures it out, because the color drains from her face and tears immediately well up in her eyes. “Quinn…” Her voice shakes. “Were you awake?”</p><p>She’s glad she can think about this without throwing up now, because she really doesn’t want to vomit all over Rachel. “For some of it.”</p><p>Rachel swallows thickly, and Quinn momentarily wonders if Rachel is going to throw up on her. “Quinn…” She says in that same shaky voice, “Have you told anyone?”</p><p>“Santana knows, my sister knows, my therapist knows – I think my mom might know, but that’s something I’m working on with my therapist.” She feels like she’s revealed enough to Rachel today to reveal that she also sees a therapist.</p><p>Apparently, that’s not something that interests Rachel, or maybe she just wants to change the subject, because she asks, “You have a sister?”</p><p>Quinn nods, “Frannie. She’s six years older and she’d already gone to college when we moved to Lima - that’s why you don’t know her.”</p><p>“You’ve never mentioned her before. Are you close?”</p><p>She shrugs, “We were when I was really little, then we weren’t for a while. We got closer when she moved away, she’s always the one I ask for help when I need it.”</p><p>Rachel seems curious and she asks, “Did she help you when you got kicked out?” She gasps and claps a hand over her mouth, “Sorry, that’s insensitive.”</p><p>“It’s okay,” Quinn smiles to reassure her, “She wanted to, but our dad had a lot of power in our family – she couldn’t openly support me without being completely cut off as well. She did what she could, but she was mostly there as emotional support, I called her every day.”</p><p>Rachel smiles, “That must be nice.” Quinn detects a hint of sadness in her voice.</p><p>“Yeah, it is,” Quinn grins, “She’s actually pregnant at the moment and she does the same thing, updates me on everything.”</p><p>Rachel’s face lights up, “Is she having a boy or a girl?”</p><p>“She wants a surprise.”</p><p>Rachel pulls a face and Quinn laughs.</p><p>They talk until Rachel’s dads get home, telling lighthearted childhood stories. They avoid the not-so-nice things Quinn brought up earlier, focusing instead on the positives. It’s the first time Quinn has really spent one-on-one time with Rachel, and she feels weird, floaty almost, like she’s riding some kind of high. It makes her feel nice, and she hates that she was ever mean to Rachel, could ever make her feel low.</p><p>She feels so guilty that as Rachel hugs her goodbye she whispers, “I’m sorry.”</p><p>Rachel continues to hold her close, whispering, “For what?” Against the skin of Quinn’s neck, which makes her shiver.</p><p>“For being horrible to you.”</p><p>“I forgive you,” Rachel tightens the hug ever so slightly.</p><p>They stay there like that until Quinn’s phone rings, her mother calling to ask why she isn’t home yet.</p><p>The next day, they sing their duet, and Quinn attributes the way Rachel is looking at her to the thing she told her the day before. The reason Rachel stares at her like <em>that</em> is because she feels sorry for her.</p><p>Then Lauren outs Lucy to the whole school. She asks Quinn about her nose job, and Quinn lies through her teeth saying she’d asked for it. She doesn’t know why she’s still protecting Russell Fabray when he’d done nothing but hurt her.</p><p>Everyone finding out about Lucy has been her worst fear since she got to McKinley, and as she runs into the hallway and sees photos of who she was plastered all over the corridor, she feels herself starting to break.</p><p>She doesn’t blame Lauren – it wasn’t cool, but she hadn’t exactly been playing fair either. There was no way for Lauren to know the damage she was creating.</p><p>There are tears in her eyes as she runs away from everyone, people staring and whispering. It feels just like when she was Lucy.</p><p>Of course, she resorts to Lucy’s coping mechanisms.</p><p>Which is how Brittany and Santana find her curled up in the corner of the bathroom in the arts wing, sobbing so hard she can’t breathe, her lunch and half her breakfast in the toilet bowl.</p><p>Brittany flushes the toilet while Santana kneels down next to her. “Q,” She says gently, “You need to breathe.”</p><p>Quinn can’t.</p><p>“Here,” Santana takes Quinn’s hand and holds it to her chest, “Copy me, when you feel my chest rise breath in, and then count to five and release it again. In and out… In and out…”</p><p>Slowly her breathing evens out.</p><p>Santana pulls her into a hug, Brittany bends down and wraps her arms around her as well.</p><p>“It’ll be okay,” Santana says.</p><p>Quinn doesn’t believe her.</p><p>But she wants – <em>needs</em> – to be okay. She needs to be okay for her mom and Frannie and her niece or nephew.</p><p>It’s the first time she’s relapsed since she got out of inpatient treatment at the end of summer, and the moment it stops making her feel better, it starts making her feel horrible, because she had been doing so well. She’d <em>talked</em> about it the day before for Christ’s sake. </p><p>Brittany seems to pick up on this, because she grabs Quinn’s hand and squeezes, “It’s okay Quinn. Progress is progress, next time it’ll be longer.”</p><p>She’s not in any mood to go back to class – the day is almost over anyway – so Santana and Brittany help her clean up and then walk her to her car. Quinn can sense the tension between them, it’s been there since Brittany started dating Artie, but it’s worse now somehow.</p><p>“Thank you,” She says when they reach her car, expecting them to leave her. Except they’ve apparently reverted back to their supervision schedule from the start of the school year, because they don’t leave her – Brittany getting into the driver’s side of Quinn’s car, and Santana going to hers and following them home. Quinn wants to protest Brittany driving her, but she’s not in any state to be behind the wheel right now, so she lets her.</p><p>They distract her until Judy gets home, and Brittany continues to keep her occupied as Santana explains what happened. Judy sends a worried look her way, but otherwise, she doesn’t mention it to Quinn.</p><p>She’s grateful for the extra attention her mother pays her that night. It’s just like when Quinn first got back from Columbus. She spends more time cooking dinner that night, packing extra vegetables into the pasta sauce. She doesn’t start eating her meal until Quinn has finished half of hers.</p><p>She offers to take Quinn for ice-cream when she finishes, and the relief on her face when Quinn agrees makes Quinn feel guilty all over again. She wishes she hadn’t hurt her mother so much, hadn’t terrified her when she was sick.</p><p><em>No</em>. She reminds herself. <em>She</em> hadn’t hurt her mother. Her mental illness had, and she exists separately from her mental illness. She has a mental illness – it is a part of her, but it won’t always be. The things her mental illness makes her do are not a part of her.</p><p>She pulls her mother into an extra tight hug that night when she says goodnight.</p><p>“I love you,” She says.</p><p>Judy pulls back and brushes the hair off Quinn’s face, “I love you too.”</p><p>“I’m sorry.”</p><p>Judy pulls her back to kiss her forehead, “You have nothing to apologize for. You’re amazing.”</p><p>She knows in that moment that she has to tell her. It’s what she’s been working on with Julia for months and she knows now is the right time, “Mom,” Her voice cracks a little, “Can I tell you something?”</p><p>Judy looks down at her, worry curling her brow, “Of course you can.”</p><p>“When Puck – I mean the night that – I mean - ” She stumbles over her words trying to figure out how to say it without bursting into tears immediately. She takes a deep breath, “I was drunk <em>that </em>night,” She puts extra emphasis on the word so hopefully Judy knows what she’s talking about without her actually having to say it, “I don’t really remember it,” Her words catch in her throat and she takes a second to breathe. “I just know I wanted him to stop but he wouldn’t.”</p><p>The meaning behind her words is clear and Judy’s sharp intake of breath tells her she understands <em>exactly </em>what she means.</p><p>She expects for her cry, but she doesn’t – at least not while she’s in Quinn’s room – she just looks at Quinn, eyes filled with more pain than Quinn has ever seen and says in a steady voice, “I love you Quinn, so much, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you.”</p><p>Quinn doesn’t quite know what to say to that, so she says nothing.</p><p>Her mother pulls her into a hug, tighter than normal, and holds her for a while. It’s nothing like they’ve ever done before, and it’s nice.</p><p>Because it reminds Quinn that no matter how broken something is, there’s always a way to fix it.</p><p>Well maybe not always because she can’t ever see herself forgiving Russell Fabray.</p><p>But, if she can fix her relationship with her mother, she can fix almost everything.</p><p>The next day she powers through despite the stares.</p><p>She sees the way Brittany and Santana watch her as she eats her lunch. She deliberately avoids going to the bathroom throughout the whole of the lunch break and the following two periods so they don’t worry.</p><p>Before glee, Finn shows her his photo of Lucy in his wallet. She hates it so much, but she smiles and nods anyway.</p><p>Then he ropes her into wearing a ‘Lucy Caboosey’ shirt for the glee assignment.</p><p>She hates him for it.</p><p>Brittany gives her an encouraging smile, looking slightly sad. Quinn assumes it’s because Santana is mysteriously absent.</p><p>Then Rachel is there, and as Kurt starts singing, they are in opposite wings and Rachel makes eye contact with her across the stage.</p><p>She smiles at Quinn and mouths ‘<em>I love you.’</em> Nodding to her shirt.</p><p>Quinn’s heart jumps and she just smiles back.</p><p>She can’t think clearly throughout the whole dance, her brain replaying Rachel mouthing those three words over and over again.</p><p>She’s distracted all afternoon; she almost forgets about her therapy appointment. But then she remembers how much has happened in the past week that she needs to share and gets in her car.</p><p>She spends the drive organizing her thoughts – working out which of the week’s events is the most important and definitely needs to be brought up today.</p><p>The door to Julia’s office has barely closed behind her when she says, “I had a relapse.”</p><p>Julia looks slightly startled at how she entered, “Okay, we can work through this.”</p><p>“But,” Quinn continues, “I also told someone about my ED and Puck, and the whole school knows about Lucy. And,” She pauses to emphasize her last point, “I told my Mom.”</p><p>“Well,” Julia says, “That’s a lot.” She smiles warmly, “You seem okay though, are you alright?”</p><p>Quinn contemplates this for a second, because yesterday she hadn’t been okay, and for most of today she hadn’t been okay, but now she was feeling fine. “I’m alright. It’s been a weird week, but I’m okay.” Julia likes her to voice why she’s feeling certain emotions, to judge for herself what has caused a certain reaction,  “I understand why I relapsed and I think if I work on that trigger, it won’t happen again.”</p><p>Julia nods, “Okay then. That’s good,” She grins, “I’m proud of you, Quinn.”</p><p>Quinn smiles awkwardly back.</p><p>“Now,” Julia says, “Let’s talk about this trigger.”</p><p>Quinn leaves that session feeling a lot better than when she’d entered. They’d discussed Lucy at great length, but also Quinn telling Rachel and how that was a big step for her.</p><p>Judy is waiting for her at home, and Quinn gets the feeling they’re reverting back to her having a constant ‘babysitter’ for a bit.</p><p>She’s grateful.</p><p>Not because she thinks she’s actually going into a full-on relapse again, but because she has people on her side. It makes everything just a little bit easier.</p><p>She starts spending more time with Sam. His family is struggling, and she wants to make sure he’s okay, especially when he helped her so much at the start of the year.</p><p>Then it’s prom and of course she’s going with Finn. She wants to win prom queen – the reasons aren’t entirely selfish like everyone seems to think – she wants to win because it’s something that she wouldn’t have been able to do before, she wouldn’t have been able to do it without stressing about the way people were looking at her or the way she looked. She would have taken their stares as confirmation of how ugly she was and the votes as a joke to humiliate her.</p><p>Winning now would prove to her that she can overcome this. That she is beautiful and strong, and she can do anything.</p><p>She takes a deep breath as she looks in the mirror, her hands tremble slightly as she reaches for Frannie’s old tiara – she’d asked if she could borrow it, needing to feel that connection to her sister in this moment. So much of her past is linked to her desire to be just like her older sister – Frannie had always emulated perfection. Quinn knows now that Frannie is far from perfect, but she’d always been the daughter Russell Fabray wanted, Quinn hadn’t – well, Lucy hadn’t, and no matter how hard she tries, she’s still Lucy deep down. Lucy’s a part of her, no matter how much she changes herself, who she was – <em>is</em> – defines who she is and who she’ll become.</p><p>Looking in the mirror right now, she can see Lucy reflected in her eyes. There was a period time when she couldn’t look at herself without analyzing every aspect of herself with a critical, judgmental eye. But right now, she knows she looks beautiful. She looks past the flaws and it’s like she’s looking through Lucy’s eyes again; before Lucy fell apart; before Lucy started to hate herself.</p><p>She takes the tiara off delicately, and stands, smoothing her dress down, answering Judy’s calls and making her way down the stairs.</p><p>For all the emphasis she’s put onto ‘<em>only having one chance at your junior prom</em>’ she doesn’t really care about the glamour of it all. It’s nice, to feel like a princess for a night, but she feels out of place in Finn’s arms as Judy takes a million photos, and even more out of place when he starts swaying them together once they reach the dancefloor.</p><p>He spins them around at one point, and her eyes meet Rachel Berry’s. Her heart lurches and she tightens her grip on Finn’s shoulder. It’s not meant to be possessive, but she sees Rachel’s face drop, and her heart echoes the expression. She holds Rachel’s gaze for the remainder of the song.</p><p>There are hundreds of other students in the room, but for a moment it feels like there’s just her and Rachel looking at one another. Her whole body buzzes with some unknown emotion.</p><p>The part of her brain that <em>knows</em> tries to worm its way to the front, but the other, bigger part, that wants to keep it hidden pushes it back down.</p><p>She makes her way to the stage; she stands head high as she waits for Figgins to call her name.</p><p>He never does.</p><p>She’s the first one to slip away, her head pounding and her heart lurching – she feels humiliated, even though she’s aware that nothing really happened to her. Her chest tightens as her old insecurities start to push their way into her thoughts.</p><p>
  <em>Is she not pretty enough?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Is she not popular enough? </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Is she not enough?</em>
</p><p>Her thoughts bubble into tears and she chokes on them. Her feet carry her towards the bathroom, because old thoughts lead to old habits.</p><p>Her brain is hazy, and she can’t even remember if she’s eaten enough today for this to even work. Her footsteps clatter as she runs, and she stumbles around the corner, muttering ‘Sorry,’ to a girl as they almost collide.</p><p>She pushes open the bathroom door and it’s at that moment she realises Rachel is behind her, <em>shit</em>.</p><p>She wants to just lock herself in one of the stalls and cry until she can’t anymore, but then Rachel says, “Quinn, you need to calm down.” In a voice that suggests she knows exactly why Quinn was heading to the bathroom in the first place.</p><p>She doesn’t even know what she’s saying, just that there’s pain etched into Rachel’s eyes as she speaks. She’s causing it – this is her fault. The voice in the back of her head naggingly reminds her that she’s a terrible person.</p><p>She feels a flare of anger, and then Rachel’s clutching her cheek, and Quinn realizes she hit her.</p><p><em>She</em> did that. She freezes, Rachel looking up at her with wide eyes. “I’m so sorry.”</p><p>The voice reminds her she’s a terrible person again. This time she doesn’t argue, because she <em>is</em>. She hit Rachel.</p><p>She’s just like her father.</p><p>No.</p><p>Yes – she had just hit Rachel, and that’s where it had all started with Russel, a simple slap across the face.</p><p>That thought almost sends her running into the stall.</p><p>She thinks about what she’s spoken about with Julia, about how she’s lashed out at Rachel in the past, how some days she feels just as horrible as her father was. Julia had pulled out a research paper for Quinn to read and explained to her what observed conditioning is – about how the environments people are raised in shape their behaviours, and how aggressive and hurtful behaviours are usually a result of copying those behaviours off someone else; usually a parent or guardian.</p><p><em>“After all,”</em> Julia had said, <em>“There’s a reason abuse is considered a cycle.”</em></p><p>Those words had shocked her the most, because despite everything, she’d never really considered what Russell Fabray did as abuse. But it was, even if she didn’t count the physical abuse, his control and manipulation were bad enough.</p><p>“Rachel,” She lets out a breath, “I’m so, so sorry.”</p><p>Rachel rubs her cheek, but she nods, “It’s okay,” She says.</p><p>It’s not and Quinn says so.</p><p>Rachel meets her eyes, staring deeply into them, “It’s okay,” She repeats.</p><p>Quinn’s heart breaks and she doesn’t even know why.</p><p>Rachel keeps rambling for a minute, Quinn watches her, noting the way she’s careful with her words, like she’s making sure she doesn’t comment on anything about prom, or Finn. She turns away as Rachel’s inspecting her face in the mirror and says, “I know you think it’s hard to be you, Rachel. But at least you don’t have to be terrified all the time.”</p><p>Rachel runs a tissue under the tap, “What are you so scared of?”</p><p>
  <em>People finding out about Lucy. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>People finding out about Puck. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Russell. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Beth. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Herself. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>You…</em>
</p><p>She doesn’t know why the last thought pops into her head, but it’s pushed away as Rachel’s hand brushes over hers, passing her the tissue.</p><p>Her heart stops.</p><p>Her breathing stops.</p><p>Everything stops.</p><p>Except for Rachel.</p><p>Then her hand moves back, and the moment comes crashing back down on Quinn.</p><p>What the hell was <em>that.</em></p><p>She makes a vague comment about the future. She thinks Rachel gets what she means because Rachel <em>knows</em>. She knows everything, and even though she’s being vague, she thinks Rachel understands – understands that her brain is a mess and she can’t even begin to voice what she’s thinking.</p><p>Rachel lifts her head, so their eyes are level, “Look, you have nothing to be scared of,” She pauses for a moment, “Look, you’re a very pretty girl, Quinn.”</p><p>Quinn’s heart stops.</p><p>“Prettiest girl I’ve ever met.”</p><p>She forgets how to breathe.</p><p>“But you’re a lot more than that.”</p><p>Every thought stops. Her brain replays the words over and over and over.</p><p>Rachel takes the tissue and brushes it under her eyes. Her face is so close to Quinn’s, she could lean over and –</p><p>Her brain blocks the thought.</p><p>Then their eyes meet.</p><p>And, in that moment, the roadblock in Quinn’s brain decides it’s the right time to move. It shifts out of the way, allowing the one thought she’s been suppressing for years to <em>finally</em> make its way to the surface. It explodes in her mind, like a firework going off, lighting up her senses.</p><p>And, suddenly, she just <em>knows.</em></p><p>She’s out of the bathroom before the thought even fully solidifies in her brain. Her heels click along the floor as she sprints even faster than before. She’s vaguely aware of Rachel calling after her, but her brain isn’t processing anything other than the words swirling around in her brain.</p><p>
  <em>You’re in love with Rachel Berry.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You’re in love with Rachel Berry. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>You’re in love with Rachel Berry. </em>
</p><p>She pushes through the front doors.</p><p>She’s <em>in love </em>with <em>Rachel Berry.</em></p><p>Mercedes finds her fifteen minutes later on the far side of the student parking lot, staring into space with tear streaks staining her face.</p><p>“Quinn,” She approaches her slowly, “What’s wrong?”</p><p>Quinn says nothing, but her bottom lip trembles slightly.</p><p>“Rachel said you ran away, I wanted to check if you were okay?”</p><p>“Come on,” Mercedes gently grabs her arm, “There’s only one more dance and then I’ll take you home.”</p><p>She lets herself be led back inside.</p><p>She’s gone numb – her brain isn’t letting her think about anything other than those six words. They pulse in her head like a heartbeat, getting stronger and stronger with every step.</p><p>She feels like throwing up, but Mercedes has a firm hold of her, and then they’re in the crowded gym and she’s surrounded by people and there’s nowhere to go but onto the dancefloor.</p><p>Her head won’t even process what these six words mean – well, she knows what they mean – but her brain is blocking her from thinking about the implications behind them.</p><p>Her eyes catch Rachel, dancing with Sam and Mercedes a few feet away.</p><p>She feels her heart drop into her stomach, like a lead weight sinking deeper inside of her.</p><p>If she’s <em>in love</em> with Rachel Berry, that means –</p><p>No.</p><p>She can’t think about that. Not right now.</p><p>She feels very isolated in this crowded room, everyone is dancing, and she is too – but despite that, she feels every image she’s ever had of herself collapsing around her, all of her hopes and goals crumbling to dust because of those six little words.</p><p>
  <em>You’re in love with Rachel Berry. </em>
</p><p>She needs some air, she can’t stay in here with Rachel right nearby – she needs to be somewhere, anywhere else.</p><p>She mutters to Mercedes that she’s going to wait outside, she catches a word of protest, but she’s already heading towards the door.</p><p>She takes a deep breath, sucking in as much air as she can to calm herself down. She makes her way along the empty corridor, trying to control her breathing as best as she can.</p><p>The stars twinkle as she pushes open the door to the parking lot – she can’t breathe right now, not while her brain is whirring so fast.</p><p>She wills her lungs to open up as she sucks air in as deeply as she can.</p><p>It’s not really working.</p><p>Her foot bounces on the pavement, trying to shake some of the stress from her body.</p><p>That’s not working either.</p><p>Mercedes traipses out of the front door a few minutes later, holding up her car keys and unlocking the door for Quinn, who gratefully climbs into the back seat.</p><p>Mercedes slips her key into the ignition, twisting it to start the engine. The car groans slightly as the car starts, and Mercedes turns to Quinn, “We just have to wait for Sam to grab Rachel, she was talking to Mr Schue.”</p><p>Quinn chokes, “Rachel?”</p><p>Mercedes frowns, “Yeah, Jesse was supposed to take her home, but he left after he got kicked out.”</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>Mercedes turns back to face the entrance to the school.</p><p>Quinn slumps back in her seat, the emotion of the night is catching up to her and she feels exhausted.</p><p>She prays Rachel sits in the front seat.</p><p>She doesn’t.</p><p>She smiles at Quinn as she opens the door and slides onto the seat, immediately fastening her seatbelt.</p><p>Quinn tenses and looks away.</p><p>The others make small talk as they drive, but Quinn doesn’t open her mouth. She thinks she’ll throw up if she does. She sits ramrod straight, keeping her eyes firmly fixed out the window – decidedly away Rachel.</p><p>She can hear the other girl breathing. She shivers, goosebumps rising on her arms. She’s so aware of Rachel right now – not that she wasn’t before, but now she knows what it means.</p><p>And it changes everything.</p><p>Mercedes pulls the car into a driveway, and Quinn looks up, it’s Rachel’s house.</p><p>She hears the <em>click</em> as Rachel undoes her seatbelt, “Thanks, Mercedes,” She says. “Bye, Sam. Bye, Quinn.”</p><p>Quinn’s body betrays her brain, because she twists her head to smile at Rachel as she climbs out of the car. She’s pretty sure it comes out more like a grimace.</p><p>She shouldn’t have looked, because she can’t tear her eyes away from Rachel as she walks up to her front door.</p><p>She’s gorgeous, even in the dim night lighting – the moon illuminates her walk to her porch, her heels clicking on the stone steps up to the porch. She turns around to wave at them, and her eyes catch in the light, twinkling.</p><p>The breath leaves Quinn’s lungs.</p><p>How could she not have noticed this before?</p><p>But she <em>had</em> noticed – she’d just refused to acknowledge what it meant.</p><p>A lump forms in her throat as Mercedes pulls up in front of the motel Sam is living at, he smiles at Quinn as he gets out, but otherwise says nothing.</p><p>She stays silent as Mercedes pulls away from the curb. Her head is spinning. She swallows roughly around the lump.</p><p>She hates this.</p><p>Hates how she feels right now.</p><p>Because, <em>God</em>, she just wanted her life to be simple from now on. And if the six words swirling around her brain on repeat mean what she thinks they mean, she –</p><p>She stops her thoughts before she throws up all over Mercedes’ car.</p><p>They pull into her driveway, the headlights illuminating the white bricks.</p><p>“Thanks,” She mumbles, unlatching her door and going to get out.  </p><p>Mercedes grabs her arm, forcing her to look back. “Are you okay?” She asks, concern etched into her features.</p><p>Quinn nods, even if it’s a lie. She feels like her brain is being forced through a paper shredder, pain flaring with every thought.</p><p>Mercedes’ face curls into a gentle smile, “I don’t know what’s going on,” She says very softly. Her smile grows into a tiny grin, “But, you’re going to be alright, hey?”</p><p>The infliction at the end of her sentence turns it into a question, but it’s a reassurance at the same time, she’s letting Quinn know that she believes in her, no matter what.</p><p>She feels tears starting to well up in her eyes, and she pulls Mercedes into a hug before she can let them fall. “Thank you,” She whispers into her hair.</p><p>Mercedes nods, and lets her go.</p><p>She lifts her hand and waves as she pulls out of the driveway, leaving Quinn alone, the sensor light above the garage casting a spotlight around her, until she’s been standing still for too long and it flicks off – her shadow disappearing into the blackness of the night.</p><p>She drags her keys out of her purse and unlocks the front door.</p><p>She climbs the stairs slowly; the lights are off upstairs, and she assumes her mother has already gone to bed – it is almost midnight.</p><p>She wants to collapse into her bed and sleep away all of the thoughts of the night.</p><p>She doesn’t undo her dress when she reaches her bedroom, she doesn’t even turn the light on, she just lets her body flop face first onto her bed. She breathes in and out, the pillow making the breaths shallower than normal.</p><p>Her head is spinning.</p><p>She lets out a choked sob.</p><p>Everything from the night is catching up to her.</p><p>She wants to scream – she wants to look up at the sky and scream at God, because why? Why after everything she’s been through does <em>this</em> have to happen as well.</p><p>She’s alone now, and whatever piece of the roadblock that was still existing in her brain has slipped away. She’s hit with the full force of the thought.</p><p>She whimpers – why, God, why? After everything else, <em>this</em>?</p><p>Some, deep, dark, logical part of her brain rationalizes that <em>this</em> is not necessarily a bad thing.</p><p>Because, if being – she shudders at the thought, another choked sob escapes her mouth – <em>in love </em>with Rachel Berry means what she thinks it does, she’s –</p><p>Her brain still blocks the words.</p><p>No.</p><p>Her stomach rolls, and she fights the urge to run to her bathroom and get rid of all the snacks she’d eaten at prom.</p><p>She starts replaying every interaction she’s ever had with Rachel.</p><p>She remembers the first time she’d seen her, in Mr Schue’s Spanish class at the start of Freshman year – the way she’d felt like all of the air had been sucked out of her lungs the moment she’d looked at her.</p><p>The urges she’d felt to insult Rachel’s appearance – even when she felt terrible about it – to somehow detach herself from the way the sight of Rachel always made butterflies rise into her chest, causing her heart to race.</p><p><em>Those</em> drawings.</p><p>The way her eyes always find Rachel, even in a crowd.</p><p>The way her eyes always follow Rachel until she’s out of sight.</p><p>She fights the desire to scream again.</p><p>She just wants to sleep and wake up from this nightmare, because existing as Quinn Fabray is hard enough already, and <em>this</em> is going to make everything harder.</p><p>
  <em>God why?</em>
</p><p>What’s even the point? What’s the point of existing when everything keeps getting ripped out from under her?  </p><p>She doesn’t think the pillow is muffling her sobs anymore, but her mother hasn’t come running – she stops caring about whether she can hear her, she swings her legs over the side of her bed, stumbling blindly as her heels catch on the carpet.</p><p>She kicks them off, hearing a <em>thump</em> as they land somewhere on the other side of her room.</p><p>She just needs something to stop her thoughts right now.</p><p>Because she <em>can’t </em>deal with this right now, she just can’t.</p><p>It’s too much.</p><p>Her eyes adjust to the darkness as she fumbles her way over to her bathroom.</p><p>She flicks the bathroom light on, mostly because she doesn’t really know what she’s looking for.</p><p>She just needs something, <em>anything</em>, that will make her brain stop thinking.</p><p>Her hands shake as she opens the cabinet.</p><p>At the back, behind the Advil and Band-Aids, there’s a pill bottle filled with sleeping pills.</p><p>She knows they’re there, because she’d been prescribed them when she’d first gotten back from inpatient treatment last summer. They were recommended to help her adjust back to ‘regular’ life, without the strict schedule of the facility.</p><p>She’d never taken them.</p><p>But now…</p><p>She’s grasping at the bottle before she even really knows what she’s doing, pressing down to counteract the child-lock and pouring a handful of the little white pills into her left hand.</p><p>A very scary thought flickers through her mind for a moment.</p><p>She brushes it away.</p><p>She just wants to sleep, nothing else.</p><p>Still, she tips five of the pills into her mouth, and sticks her head under the faucet, gulping as she swallows them.</p><p>There.</p><p>Now she’ll sleep.</p><p>She doesn’t put the cap back on the bottle, instead, just leaving it on the counter.</p><p>She flicks the light back off and re-enters her dark bedroom.</p><p>For the second time that night, she slumps face first onto her bed without taking her prom dress off.</p><p>Her thoughts swirl around her head as sleep slowly takes over her.</p><p>Those six little words playing over and over again.</p><p>
  <em>You’re in love with Rachel Berry. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>You’re in love with Rachel Berry. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>You’re in love with Rachel Berry. </em>
</p><p>In the final seconds before the sleeping pills kick in, she thinks maybe it will be better if she just never wakes up.</p><p>She does.</p><p>Granted, more than sixteen hours later.</p><p>But she wakes up, and somehow, she feels worse.</p><p>Partly because the pills haven’t quite worn off and her limbs still feel vaguely like lead, but mostly because her brain is still completely in denial.</p><p>The sequins from her dress are digging into her arms, and her hair has come loose from its bun, the pins that had held it back are hanging limply from the ends, tangled amongst strands of hair.</p><p>Her mouth is dry, and she swings her arm around, trying to grip the water bottle that she keeps on her nightstand. Her fingers don’t cooperate, and it falls to the ground with a <em>thud</em>.</p><p>She doesn’t move to pick it up.</p><p>Instead she continues lying completely still, trying to fight off the remaining tendrils of sleep, her brain still spinning with the same thoughts as the night before.</p><p>She feels like she’s gone numb – she’s still not processing anything other than those six words.</p><p>Except she does know what they mean. What they imply.</p><p>She drags herself out of bed, her legs shaking as she stands on them.</p><p>She goes through the motions of getting ready.</p><p>She takes her dress off, not bothering to hang it up, instead letting it fall in a heap on the floor.</p><p>She goes into her bathroom and pulls the pins out of her hair, they’re tangled in and she rips out a chunk of hair as her fingers fumble to yank them out.</p><p>Her eyes fall on the pill bottle, still sitting open on the side of the sink. She contemplates downing another handful and falling back into bed.</p><p>Julia’s voice worms it’s way into her brain, telling her to face her problems instead of letting herself run away. She has no idea how to face this one, but the rational part of her brain has returned enough to tell her that sleeping the day away is not the way to go about it.</p><p>She turns the shower on, stripping out of her underwear as the water heats up. She pauses for a moment, eyes falling on herself in the mirror.</p><p>It’s been a long time since she’s looked at herself in a mirror – not just a glance but a proper look, where she examines every inch of herself. She used to do it daily, criticizing every flaw she could find, mentally analyzing how she could fix them.</p><p>She hasn’t done that in months – a testament to how far she’s come – but she finds a strange comfort in doing it now. Not criticizing, just looking.</p><p>She takes a small step closer to the mirror and leans forward so her face is almost touching the glass.</p><p>The water patters onto tiles behind her – she’s certain it’s warm enough now, but she ignores it for a minute, focusing on the green eyes that stare back at her from her mirror.</p><p>They trace over her face; the curve of her nose, the slight dip where it healed back together; the tiny freckles that dusk her cheeks, the ones she can only really see in summer; the outline of her jaw.</p><p>She smiles at herself, watching the way her lips curl up and out, her teeth straight and white.</p><p>She let’s out a deep breath, the air fogging the glass.</p><p>It feels strange to look at herself this way, but it’s oddly calming.</p><p>Her head is still spinning with the six words, but they’re not sending her straight into a panic anymore.</p><p>She can deal with this. Maybe not right now, but she can.</p><p>As long as no one knows.</p><p>Because if people find out -</p><p>Her heart sinks into her stomach again.</p><p>Kurt swirls into her mind, the slushies and the dumpsters – him transferring schools to get away from it all.</p><p>Santana flashes in her mind for a moment too, because even if she’s never explicitly told Quinn, she knows. Knows what her and Brittany do, knows how terrified she is of people finding out.</p><p>She finally forces herself to get into the shower, the hot water washing over her. It’s not very comforting at all, because now she’s thinking about all the people that are going to hate her because of <em>this</em>.</p><p>She can’t acknowledge what it is.</p><p>She starts to wonder which people she’ll lose if people find out.</p><p>Her brain spirals with having to go through getting kicked out again and she loses it. She curls into a ball on the floor and lets the water fall over her.</p><p>
  <em>Why. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Just why.</em>
</p><p>Her eyes catch the razor on the shelf, and she’d promised herself she’d never do that again, but she needs to feel something, <em>anything</em> other than what she’s feeling right now.</p><p>She snaps the top open.</p><p>And then there’s ten little red lines on the right hip, and then ten more. And the water’s diluting the blood, but it’s trickling down her leg, and the sight of it calms her more than the pain does.</p><p>They’ve stopped bleeding by the time she gets out of the shower, they’re not deep, she hopes not deep enough to leave scars. Then again, if they do scar, the white lines will blend into the stretch marks that cover her hips anyway.</p><p>She hopes.</p><p>She hates that it makes her feel better.</p><p>Hates that she’s somehow incapable of healthy coping mechanisms.</p><p>Hates that she feels like everything that could possibly go wrong in her life seems to be happening.</p><p>Hates that she feels like everything is going to get worse before it gets better.</p><p>She’s gone back onto that weird autopilot stage that she went through at the start of Sophomore year.</p><p>She’s just going through the motions of day to day existence.</p><p>She finds solace in razor blades and sleeping pills and she feels like she’s walking around like a zombie most of the time.</p><p>She’s honestly surprised no one notices.</p><p>Because she’s trapped in her brain replaying those six words over and over, and nothing about her behavior is normal.</p><p>She comes rushing back when Finn breaks up with her in the front seat of his truck, and her first instinct is to ask about Rachel because she can’t stop thinking about Rachel.</p><p>And then he’s talking about Rachel and being tethered to her, and Quinn feels her breathing speeding up and her heart start racing because she feels the same way, except Rachel doesn’t feel the same way back.</p><p>Not like she does to Finn.</p><p>She tries to beg him to keep her, part of it is selfish – she doesn’t want him to get Rachel. But most of it is because she can’t let people find out, she needs a boyfriend, needs <em>Finn</em> because otherwise people will know and she can’t let that happen, she just can’t.</p><p>And then, “Don’t you feel anything anymore?”</p><p>And she breaks all over again.</p><p>Because she doesn’t.</p><p>And it’s terrifying.</p><p>She feels a tear trickle down her cheek.</p><p>She’s vaguely aware of telling Finn to leave her alone.</p><p>And then she’s walking along the edge of the highway in the direction of Lima.</p><p>Cars zoom past her and she wonders if any of them are contemplating stopping for the teenager walking alone as the sun is starting to set.</p><p>A part of her tells her she should just take two steps to the left and let one of them hit her. Even if it doesn’t kill her, at least she could stop pretending she’s okay for a little while.</p><p>She really doesn’t know what the point is anymore.</p><p>It feels like no matter how hard she tries she’ll never be enough, there will always be another curveball, another challenge, another battle to fight. And it feels like it’s only a matter of time before she loses the next fight.</p><p>Maybe she should just give up. Put down her sword and surrender to whatever cruel fate is set out for her.</p><p>It would be easier.</p><p>So much easier.</p><p>She’s going to do it, she counts her steps; ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two…</p><p>One.</p><p>She steps to the side.</p><p>Only there’s no cars.</p><p>The road that was busy a moment ago is now empty, and it’s just her standing alone in the middle of a two-lane highway in her little white dress.</p><p>She steps back over to the side.</p><p>Her breaths are uneven and shaky, her chest rattling each time she inhales.</p><p>She looks up at the sky, cloudy and purple.</p><p><em>Why? </em>She asks in her head, <em>Just why? </em></p><p>Because after everything, God or the Universe or Fate or <em>whatever</em> won’t let her go when she wants too.</p><p>Another car speeds past and she kicks the ground, the gravel digs into her toe and she winces.</p><p>She keeps walking.</p><p>It takes her hours to make it home, and when she finally does Judy is sitting worriedly in the living room. She jumps up at the sight of Quinn and starts asking her where she was.</p><p>Quinn’s brow curls into a frown, before she remembers she didn’t grab anything when she got out of Finn’s car, her phone and purse are still sitting on his dashboard. Although Judy is holding them now, so she supposes Finn dropped them off.</p><p>She looks at her mother for about two seconds before she chokes out, “Mom.”</p><p>Judy’s eyes widen and she rushes forward and pulls Quinn into a hug.  </p><p>Quinn’s legs shake and she collapses into her mother, the tears she’s been suppressing finally falling. Her breaths crackle out of her throat, a sob bubbling up, she tries to hold it back, but it forces its way out and once the first one’s released, she can’t stop them. Judy stumbles backwards as Quinn leans all of her weight on her, but her arms fly up and wrap around her daughter, rubbing circles into her back.</p><p>She leads them over to the couch, half dragging Quinn. She keeps rubbing circles, hoping they’re helping in any way.</p><p>“Oh Lucy,” She whispers.</p><p>Quinn’s sobs fill the room, she can’t stop shaking. She isn’t even really sure what she’s crying over at this point. Finn, Rachel, herself.</p><p>Judy strokes her fingers along Quinn’s forehead, lacing her hair through her fingertips.</p><p>She lets Quinn cry for a while, humming a soothing tune, then she tilts Quinn’s face towards her and says, “Alright, sweetie, what’s wrong?”</p><p>Quinn looks up at her, eyes rimmed with red, tear streaks running down through her makeup. She looks so broken and Judy’s heart clenches. She knows Quinn struggles more than she can ever imagine, it’s been abundantly clear ever since she first ended up in hospital – but she knows Quinn has a hard time trusting her, and she doesn’t blame her for it. But it makes moments like this even worse.</p><p>She’s hurting and vulnerable and all Judy wants to do is wrap her up and protect her from all the horrible things.</p><p>But she can’t, because Quinn’s already seen a lot of the horrible things and Judy didn’t protect her from any of them.</p><p>It’s something she holds a lot of guilt about – not for marrying Russell, because then her daughters wouldn’t exist – but for letting him stay and hurt them, for letting her own pain get in the way of noticing when Quinn was hurting, for not defending her when she needed it.</p><p>It had been a wakeup call when Russell had kicked her out, and an even bigger one when she’d ended up in a psychiatric facility. Because even though she’d known the situation was bad, it had never really hit her how bad until Quinn had almost died.</p><p>She’s been trying harder, but she knows she’s still not perfect.</p><p>But Quinn’s here right now and she can help her now, so that’s what she’s going to do.</p><p>She keeps stroking her hair, “Quinn, sweetie, talk to me please.”</p><p>Quinn blinks away a few tears, and Judy’s thumb swipes out to wipe them away. “Finn broke up with me,” She croaks.</p><p>“Oh,” Judy’s blood boils, because he’d been here only an hour ago to drop off Quinn’s things and hadn’t said anything.</p><p>“He told me I don’t feel anything anymore,” Quinn sniffs slightly.</p><p>Judy wants to run to his house and yell at him for that, she opens her mouth to speak, but Quinn interjects.</p><p>“He’s right,” She shifts in Judy’s arms, “I’m just numb most of the time, nothing feels right.” She tears her gaze away from her mother, “I just don’t get the point anymore.”</p><p>Judy’s heart drops, “Of what?” She questions, even though she thinks she knows the answer.</p><p>Quinn doesn’t answer, and that says everything Judy needed to hear.</p><p>“Lucy,” She says quite firmly, and meets her eyes again, “I love you, so, so much.” She takes a shaky breath, “And I know you’re hurting right now, but I need you to fight okay?” She runs her thumb under Quinn’s eyes, “Please, I need you here. <em>You </em>need you here. I know the world let you down, but I promise it will get better, okay?”</p><p>Part of Quinn wants to just blurt out the six words that have been swirling in her head, but she knows that will ruin the moment and end with her on the street, so she just nods numbly and says, “I love you too, Mom.”</p><p>Judy kisses her head and they sit in silence for a while before her mother announces she’s made pasta for dinner and gets up to serve them both plates.</p><p>She goes to therapy that week, but she doesn’t tell Julia what happened with Finn, or the six little words. Instead she lies through her teeth and Julia commends her on her progress.</p><p>She boards the plane for nationals with Santana and Brittany, she takes the aisle seat not wanting to be confined in the corner. She pretends not to notice when Santana leans her head against Brittany’s shoulder, or their hands clasped together under the blanket.</p><p>They land in New York, and she revels in the environment. She’s felt detached recently, and she knows she is spiraling again. But something about the bright lights of the city and the constant buzz of fast activity feels like a breath of fresh air, because for a little bit she’s free of the stifling small, close-mindedness of Lima.</p><p>Mr Schue leaves them alone in the hotel room, and somehow, they all end up running around the city.</p><p>At one-point Rachel catches her eye as she runs past. Her hair is flowing around her face in the wind, and her face is lit up with the brightest smile. She’s in her element, her place – the city where she’s going to become a star, and she just fits so perfectly.</p><p>Quinn stops at the sight of her, her brain clicking a mental snapshot of what Rachel looks like in this moment. She wants to hold onto that piece of Rachel’s joy forever.</p><p>For a second, she lets her brain slot herself into this fantasy. Let’s herself imagine being a part of Rachel’s future joy. She pushes the thought away as fast as it arrives, she can’t think like that, she just <em>can’t,</em> especially when Rachel’s moved past her and is now laughing at something Finn said.</p><p>Because New York is Rachel’s city, and Rachel belongs to Finn. And Quinn’s just Quinn. She doesn’t know what she’ll be doing in five years – she’ll probably still be in Lima battling the same demons.</p><p>She wonders if Rachel will remember her when she’s a Broadway star. If she’ll remember her as the girl who called her names and slapped her at prom and stole her boyfriend over and over again. Or if she’ll remember her as the girl who got pregnant at fifteen, the one who poured her heart and soul out to her the first time they were ever properly alone together.</p><p>The girl who’s <em>in love</em> with her.</p><p>Not that Rachel knows <em>that.</em></p><p>She wonders if Rachel will remember her at all.</p><p>Because she’ll never forget Rachel – although she supposes Rachel plays a much bigger role in her life than she plays in Rachel’s.</p><p>Logically she knows that she’ll get over Rachel eventually. But she’s reached the point of her <em>realization</em> where she’s gone into denial, and she keeps trying to convince herself she’s just confused, that she’ll still marry a man one day and live the life she’s supposed too.</p><p>Which is why she ends up crying in the bathroom of the hotel room the morning after Rachel goes on a date with Finn and comes back after midnight, slipping into the room quietly, thinking all of the other girls are asleep.</p><p>She can’t handle thinking about Rachel being with Finn, so she slips away as the others head off to practice, and curls into a ball in the corner of the bathroom and lets herself cry for a bit.</p><p>Santana and Brittany knock at the door after a little bit. Santana sounds annoyed, but Quinn can hear the concern lacing her voice, and knows she thinks Quinn is throwing up. She unlocks the door because she knows Santana will knock it down if she doesn’t.</p><p>She’s feeling too many emotions at once. Anger, sadness, confusion, stress, relief. It’s making her brain feel more messed up than usual and she snaps at her friends.</p><p>Brittany pulls her down onto the bed and they sandwich her in a hug, Brittany rubbing her back affectionately.</p><p>When Santana implies <em>something,</em> panic flares in Quinn’s chest and she shuts it down as fast as she can.</p><p>And then they’re cutting her hair.</p><p>It feels weirdly similar to when she made the transition from Lucy to Quinn. And just like before she likes the feeling of shedding a part of her, changing herself.</p><p>This isn’t as drastic, of course. But the hairstyle makes her feel good again temporarily and she tries to let the negative feelings about herself float away with the ends of her hair.</p><p>Her heart clenches when Finn and Rachel kiss on stage during Nationals, but she pushes it down. Suppressing the feelings.</p><p>She’ll deal with them later.</p><p>They don’t win, and they all sit in subdued silence on the flight back.</p><p>Mr Schue makes a speech about new beginnings and coming back next year with fresh determination and ideas.</p><p>Quinn gets stuck on the new beginnings part. She’s so lost right now, she needs to find the right path.</p><p>She stops at the corner store on the way home and buys a bottle of hair dye.</p><p>Maybe changing her appearance won’t help, but she doesn’t think it will hurt either.</p><p>She’s trying to find herself and this is a step in the right direction.</p><p>At sixteen, she’s Quinn Fabray</p><p>She has a Mom and a sister.</p><p>She’s not a good Christian girl, because there’s no such thing.</p><p>She knows you don’t have to follow God to be a good person.</p><p>She knows her father doesn’t love her.</p><p>She’s not perfect.</p><p>She’s still sick, but she’s getting better.</p><p>She got hurt, people know, people are helping.</p><p>She got out, but she came back.</p><p>She has a daughter, but she’s not a mother.</p><p>She needs to keep existing.</p><p>She’s in love with Rachel Berry.</p><p>She knows what that implies about herself.</p><p>She needs to find out who she truly is.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>If you'd like to listen to the playlist I listened to while writing this:<br/>https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3OEvdk9H26Gm4eaybONznB?si=vdtp9YTaRbihNmlQYakEGw</p><p>Please leave kudos/comment your thoughts I greatly appreciate it!!</p><p>Follow me on twitter @danisfabray (were I'm currently having a breakdown over Dani and Jamie from Bly Manor).</p><p>Until next time.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. can you feel me now, that i'm vulnerable in oh-so many ways</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>She considers the summer before Senior Year a separate moment to the year before, because even though they occur consecutively; that summer she knows and that makes all the difference. <br/>Most of the summer is a haze, and looking back, she doesn’t remember a lot of it – just a few moments that stick out in her mind as the most important occurrences of the summer.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi Everyone, <br/>I'm so sorry for the delay getting this out, work and uni got a lot more crazy than I expected. I hope this is worth the wait. This chapter has been edited by me, so I do apologise if I've missed any of my own mistakes I'm sometimes bad at picking them up. <br/>As usual please make sure to read the trigger/content warnings below for this chapter. </p>
<p>Enjoy xx</p>
<p>TRIGGER/CONTENT WARNINGS:<br/>- Eating disorders.<br/>- Religion.<br/>- Child abuse (both verbal and physical).<br/>- Bullying.<br/>- Homophobia.<br/>- Underage drinking<br/>- Implied/referenced rape.<br/>- Implied/referenced self-harm.<br/>- Suicide attempts/referenced suicide attempts.<br/>- Drug use/addiction.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She considers the summer before Senior Year a separate moment to the year before, because even though they occur consecutively; that summer she <em>knows</em> and that makes all the difference.</p>
<p>Most of the summer is a haze, and looking back, she doesn’t remember a lot of it – just a few moments that stick out in her mind as the most important occurrences of the summer.</p>
<p>It starts with the hair dye she purchases on the way home from her last day of Junior year. The color on the box is a startling pink and she picked it because she knows it will stand out the most in her already blonde hair.</p>
<p>It’s semi-permanent; it will wash out in a few weeks, but she’s still cautious as she applies it to the choppy ends of her hair that she still hasn’t gotten fixed since Santana snipped off the bottom with a pair of nail scissors in a hotel bathroom in New York.</p>
<p>She gets halfway through her head before she realizes she can’t reach the back to make it even.</p>
<p>There’s already smears of pink all over her bathroom sink.</p>
<p>She sighs, wondering if she should just leave it and dye it back to blonde tomorrow.</p>
<p>She looks at herself in the mirror, a smudge of pink on the tip of her ear, and a glob above her right eyebrow.</p>
<p>She sighs again, analyzing the situation.</p>
<p>She likes her hair right now.</p>
<p>Not the messy, half dyed look. But the color – she was right in thinking the pink would stand out.</p>
<p>It’s a nice change, something completely different, and also something that feel very <em>her</em>.</p>
<p>She huffs, trying to blow a sticky, pink strand of hair off her face.</p>
<p>She’s aware that changing herself is dangerous – changing herself feels a lot like Lucy. But this is different, the change from Lucy into Quinn wasn’t something intentional – at least not at first.</p>
<p>This is her making the decision – and, unlike Lucy it’s not like she can really leave the identity of Quinn Fabray behind. She’s staying in Lima, at least for the next year.</p>
<p>And Beth is a part of Quinn, no matter how far she runs, she’s never just going to abandon her one connection to her daughter.</p>
<p> Quinn was a shift, a complete deconstruction of everything that made up Lucy, molecules changing, transforming her into someone else.</p>
<p>This is a rebrand.</p>
<p>A way to stop her thoughts from spiraling out of control.</p>
<p>A last hoorah before everyone finds out about <em>her</em> and she loses them all forever.</p>
<p>
  <em>Shit.</em>
</p>
<p>She reaches a pink streaked hand to grab her phone, she dances her fingertips across the screen, trying not to get any dye on it.</p>
<p>“<em>Hello?”</em> Mercedes’ voice echoes through the speak.</p>
<p>“Hey ‘Cedes,” Quinn says, “Umm, what are you doing right now?”</p>
<p>
  <em>“Right now?”</em>
</p>
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
<p>
  <em>“Well, I was going to meet Sam at the Lima Bean, but what do you need?” </em>
</p>
<p>“Oh,” Quinn falters, not having expected Mercedes to actually be busy. “It’s okay, never mind. Have fun with Sam.”</p>
<p> <em>“Quinn,</em>” Mercedes’ keeps her voice soft, <em>“What do you need?”</em></p>
<p>“It’s kinda stupid,” Quinn mumbles.</p>
<p><em>“What?” </em>Mercedes laughs.</p>
<p>“I’m dying my hair, I need help.”</p>
<p>
  <em>“What color?”</em>
</p>
<p>“Hmm?”</p>
<p><em>“What color?”</em> Mercedes repeats.</p>
<p>“Oh,” Quinn looks down at the stains on her hands, “Pink.”</p>
<p>There’s a moment of silence while Mercedes processes this, then she says, “Nice, it’ll suit you. I’ll be there in ten.”</p>
<p>Then she hangs up before Quinn can get another word in.</p>
<p>Quinn opens the door, the front strands of her hair still sticky with dye. Mercedes’s eyes flick up and down, taking her in. She laughs and says, “Come on, let’s fix you up.”</p>
<p>It’s significantly easier with another person, and an hour later Quinn emerges from her bathroom with a full head of bright pink hair.</p>
<p>She shakes her head slightly, liking the way the hair feels around her face. She likes it shorter; she thinks she’ll keep it that way.</p>
<p>“See,” Mercedes says, nudging her shoulder, “It suits you.”</p>
<p>Quinn smiles, “Thanks.”</p>
<p>Mercedes’ smile curls into a frown and she looks intently at Quinn scanning her face for answers to a question she hasn’t asked yet. “You’re doing okay, right?”</p>
<p>Quinn pauses, unsure of how to answer. Because, yes, her previous issues are okay at the moment – she hasn’t been restricting her eating or purging. Things she’s sure Mercedes knows about even if she’s never explicitly been told. But she’s still struggling at the moment – she downs handfuls of sleeping pills every night or her brain won’t turn off it’s string of self-hatred comments about the <em>thing</em> she’s trying not to acknowledge, and there’s a patch of raw skin on her hip that’s forming into scars as they talk.</p>
<p>She doesn’t know if she’s ready for Mercedes to know about her past, even if she already knows the foundations of Lucy.</p>
<p>She shrugs, “I’m doing better than I was.”</p>
<p>Which might not be the truth, but it’s not a lie either. Maybe she’s incapable of healthy coping mechanisms, and maybe the current one is bad, but she thinks maybe it’s not as bad as the other ones.</p>
<p>At least this one isn’t slowly killing her.</p>
<p>Although maybe it is.</p>
<p>She really doesn’t know.</p>
<p>All she knows she is relying on it far too much to give it up.</p>
<p>It takes away the emptiness swirling in her brain – emptiness that swallows her whole day after day – she feels nothing, she’s numb all the time, and the sting on her hip is the only thing that cuts through the black hole of her thoughts.</p>
<p>The sleeping pills send her further into the hole, but they take away the images of Beth that rise up in her dreams, filing her with hopes that get ripped away the moment she wakes. She’d rather feeling nothingness than the pain of remembering that Beth isn’t here – Beth isn’t <em>hers.</em></p>
<p>Mercedes stays until Judy gets home, grinning at the shocked look on Judy’s face when she sees Quinn’s hair. Then she gives Quinn a tight hug and tells her she’ll see her soon.</p>
<p>Judy just keeps staring.</p>
<p>“I wanted a change,” Is the only explanation Quinn offers, shrugging her shoulders.</p>
<p>Her mother seems to be having a flashback to Lucy too, to the hair salon and the dye that helped complete the switch from Lucy to Quinn. She blinks a few times, her mouth falling open, trying to find the words, “Just,” She finally settles on, “Be careful. Please.”</p>
<p>There’s an implication there, an understanding that Quinn isn’t okay, despite the walls she’s built around herself, the face she puts on in public, pretending she’s fine.</p>
<p>Judy hasn’t mentioned the breakdown she had in her arms two weeks ago. Hasn’t mentioned the words that Quinn didn’t say – the words that indicated that she was the furthest from okay that she could possibly be.</p>
<p>The conversation lingers in the air between them, the concern that constantly laces Judy’s gaze confirms that. Quinn is more aware of her mother’s eyes on her, the way they’ve followed her every move since that conversation.</p>
<p>Still, even though she knows, she doesn’t <em>know</em>. Doesn’t know all of the hidden things Quinn is keeping inside the things that will send her over the edge if anyone finds out.</p>
<p>Quinn feels those following eyes trace her movements out of the room, watching her as she climbs up the stairs.</p>
<p>She’s grateful that Judy is worried, grateful that she cares, and that she’s trying her best to make sure she’s okay – or as okay as she can be at least.</p>
<p>But there’s also a weight to Judy’s concern, a pressure on her shoulders that she doesn’t want. It feels a lot like she’s letting her down, letting her down by falling apart when she’s doing everything she can to keep Quinn together. Letting her down by letting go. Even if she hasn’t done anything yet.  </p>
<p>She’s fairly certain it’s only a matter of time.</p>
<p>There’s no specific plan in place. Not <em>yet</em>. But the stones are being set in place, and <em>something</em> is going to happen soon.</p>
<p>The threads she’d woven to hold herself together are fraying at the edges, being tugged by the invisible hand of the world around her. A hand that’s picking up the scissors and getting ready to snip the ends of the broken strings.</p>
<p>One wrong move and the scissors will slice through the center of the threads and tear her apart at the seams, leaving behind a broken tapestry of who she used to be.</p>
<p>Although, she supposes she’s always been broken. So maybe in some strange way, it’s fate’s hand picking at the threads, pulling her down, broken piece by broken piece.</p>
<p>So, of course, by some kind of fate the phone call comes that evening.</p>
<p>It’s after a silent, stiff dinner, where Judy watches every bite that goes into Quinn’s mouth carefully. Quinn feels a lot like she’s thirteen again, especially when Judy forces her to sit on the couch and watch T.V. with her once they’re done.</p>
<p>She’s stopping Quinn from going to the bathroom.</p>
<p>It breaks Quinn’s heart, because Judy <em>cares</em>, she cares so much, and Quinn is going to let her down. She’s going to leave, and break Judy’s heart.</p>
<p>But she’s also going to take the burden off Judy’s shoulders. She’ll stop having to worry about her, about what she’s thinking, or what she’s eating, or who she’s with and what she’s doing.</p>
<p>Whether she’s hurting.</p>
<p>Which she won’t be.</p>
<p>Not soon.</p>
<p>There’s a strange peace that has come with being ready for the end. She’s ready to just be <em>nothing</em>, be <em>no one</em>. A peace knowing no one will need to worry about her, to look after her, to make sure she doesn’t hurt herself.</p>
<p>The phone rings while they’re watching reruns of The Simpson’s, the noise echoing over the sound of Homer’s voice. It’s the home phone, not one of their cell phones, and Judy frowns, signaling to Quinn that she’ll answer it.  </p>
<p>Quinn sits back on the couch as her mother answers the phone, turning down the T.V. so she can hear the conversation.</p>
<p>“Hello?” Judy says into the receiver. The voice on the other end is too quiet for Quinn to make out, but Judy responds, “Oh, hello darling.” And Quinn knows who it is.</p>
<p>Frannie.</p>
<p>And really there’s only one reason for Frannie to be calling the landline phone at almost nine pm on a random Friday night.</p>
<p>Quinn sits up, straining her ears in an attempt to discern Frannie’s words.</p>
<p>“Oh my goodness,” Judy is saying, “Oh darling, I’m so happy for you. Okay, now remember to breathe, you can do this. I’m going to book flights now,” She trails off for a moment, “Yes, I’m sure Quinn will want to come too.” A pause, “I know. I’m so proud of you darling, call us later, but there’s no rush, whenever you remember.” Judy’s eyes are shining with tears now, “I love you too, Frannie.”</p>
<p>The receiver clicks and there’s silence. It’s heavy, filled with the weight of the words Judy hasn’t yet spoken - words Quinn knows anyway.</p>
<p>Quinn breaks the silence, unable to handle the emotions that are swirling up inside of her. “When are we going?”</p>
<p>Judy blinks, caught off guard by the words. “Oh,” She sucks in a breath, “Tomorrow morning. I just, I need to book a flight.”</p>
<p>Quinn nods, “I’ll pack tonight then.”</p>
<p>Judy sways slightly, not meeting Quinn’s eyes. “You,” She says, “You don’t have to go, if you don’t want too. I know - ”</p>
<p>Quinn cuts her off, “I know. But I want to meet my niece,” She frowns, “Or nephew.”</p>
<p>Frannie’s convinced it’s a girl, and Quinn believes her.</p>
<p>Judy nods.</p>
<p>There’s been tension between them all afternoon, but now it’s swelling, reaching it’s crescendo as Judy just stares at Quinn, unshed tears in the corners of her eyes.</p>
<p>Quinn meets those eyes with her own, and lets a tiny smile curl the corners of her mouth, “Mom,” She says, forcing Judy to look at her, properly look at her, “You’re allowed to be happy about this, okay? It’s a good thing.”</p>
<p>Judy doesn’t say anything, just lets the tears fall, sliding down her cheeks. She wipes them away with the back of her hand, and fixes her eyes on Quinn’s face, studying her.</p>
<p>“I’m okay,” Quinn adds, clarifying.</p>
<p>She’s not. She’s actually probably the furthest thing from okay, but she’s struggling enough with these emotions for the both of them. She doesn’t want to Judy to be worried about her too, not when she’s already worried enough as it is.</p>
<p>She’s aware that Judy has been conflicted about all of this. About Frannie and the baby and how it will make Quinn feel. She knows it’s been playing on her mind and she’s been scared to appear happy about Frannie. But Quinn wants her to be happy – she wasn’t lying, this <em>is</em> a good thing – and she’s going to be there for Frannie no matter how much it tears her apart.</p>
<p>And being there for Frannie means telling Judy to feel the joy she’s suppressing, be happy about the birth of her grandchild. Her first <em>proper</em> grandchild.</p>
<p>Judy held Beth, for just a minute on that first day. But Beth’s never been Judy’s granddaughter in the same way that Beth’s never been Quinn’s daughter.</p>
<p>Not really. Not in the ways that matter.</p>
<p>She made a choice.</p>
<p>She has to live with that choice.</p>
<p>She’s not dragging other’s down with her regret and pain.</p>
<p>The regret is worse than the pain in a strange sense. Because she regrets it against reason, she knows that. She knows she was thinking of Beth and what was best for her, knows she couldn’t have done it, knows she gave Beth a better life, a better chance.</p>
<p>And she regrets it anyway.</p>
<p>Regrets it because it <em>hurts</em> so much to have her daughter exist so far away from herself. To not know anything about her other than her name, and where she lives.</p>
<p>But, despite all the pain about Beth, deep down buried under it all, she is happy for Frannie – so insanely happy. Just because she doesn’t get the happy moments, doesn’t mean she wants her sister to suffer as well. No, what she wants more than anything is for Frannie to have those moments, the ones she didn’t get.</p>
<p>So, yes, she’s happy for Frannie.</p>
<p>But it’s overwhelmed by the pain, by a desire to hold her daughter, the daughter she can’t hold.</p>
<p>Or, she can. But she refuses to make the phone call that will allow her too.</p>
<p>Seeing Beth will make it more real. Seeing Beth will hurt more than not seeing her.</p>
<p>Holding Beth, <em>well, </em>she definitely can’t handle that. The threads holding her together will snap the moment that happens, she’s certain of that.</p>
<p>For the second time that day she leaves her mother in the living room, retreating up the stairs to the solace of her bedroom.</p>
<p>She needs Judy to be happy about this, needs Judy to hold onto the joy of this moment. Because Quinn can’t, she <em>can’t</em>, and she needs someone to remember this moment the way it should be remembered.</p>
<p>A good moment.</p>
<p>Not one filled with longing and despair.</p>
<p>She needs to pack. Judy will book the earliest flight she can, and Quinn doesn’t want to have to get up at some ridiculous hour to get her things together.</p>
<p>She didn’t even ask Judy how long they’ll be going for. She assumes a few days at least, no more than a week – Judy will want to let Frannie and Marcus have their space with the baby.</p>
<p>She hauls her old suitcase down from the top shelf of her closet. She hasn’t used it in years, not since before <em>everything</em>. Before Beth; Before Puck; Before Quinn.</p>
<p>The last time this suitcase was used she was eleven and they went on a family trip to Fire Island. It was supposed to be a final family trip to celebrate before Frannie went to college and it was harder to have them anymore.  </p>
<p>It was the final one in general, because the next year everything fell apart.</p>
<p>Frannie had always been the glue, the perfect daughter holding them together.</p>
<p>She realizes she’s never thought about how it must have been for Frannie – leaving her behind in that house when she knew Russell liked to answer things with his fists. Knew Quinn – no, <em>Lucy</em> – was going through hell both inside and outside of that house.</p>
<p>How awful it must have been for her to be so far away; for her to come home to Lucy falling apart; Lucy practically dying. To come home to her sister being <em>not her sister</em> – the new improved version of her sister.</p>
<p>Except, Quinn has stopped referring to herself as an improvement of Lucy. Because she’s not. She’s stopped counting Quinn as the person who Lucy created. No, Lucy didn’t become Quinn – Quinn took over Lucy. Stomping down the innocence and the joy, and replacing it with the pain and fear of judgement that hasn’t made her better. It’s made her worse. So much worse.</p>
<p>Lucy was innocent.</p>
<p>Lucy was perfect.</p>
<p>Quinn is the furthest thing from innocent and perfect.</p>
<p>She shoves some clothes into her bag. She’s not really focusing on what’s going in. It’s warm, it’s summer, it’s Texas – nothing going into the bag reflects that, not that it matters. She’s certain she won’t be leaving the hotel room beyond going to visit Frannie.</p>
<p>A tiny voice in the back of her head nags her to ask Judy to book luggage that isn’t carry-on, that way she can pack a razor and multiple packs of sleeping pills to get her through the week.</p>
<p>She can’t though, Judy will get suspicious and suspicion means she’s might find out.</p>
<p>And Quinn’s quite certain she can’t live without the coping mechanisms she’s come to rely on. She can’t handle dreams about Beth and the constant empty numbness that fills every waking moment without something to draw her focus away.</p>
<p>She’s needs the sting of her hip, needs the consistent drowsiness brought on by the pills to get her through the day.</p>
<p>She’s fairly certain she’ll collapse if that gets taken away. A building caving in on itself, trapping her under rubble and dust, until she can’t get out anymore. Can’t climb out of the ruins.</p>
<p>Then she’ll simply stop. Stop existing. Fade away under the dirt and dust.</p>
<p>Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.</p>
<p>But it’s not time yet, not quite.</p>
<p>She’ll live without the razor for a week. She’ll survive if she takes one pack of sleeping pills and rations them across the days.</p>
<p>She’ll manage.</p>
<p>She takes extra pills that night.</p>
<p>Enough that when she hauls herself out of bed the next morning she almost collapses immediately, her head spinning.</p>
<p>Enough that she falls back to sleep the moment she sits down on the plane and doesn’t wake up until they land.</p>
<p>Enough that she sleeps again in the hotel room until they get the call that Frannie and the baby are ready for visitors.</p>
<p>The maternity ward in the tiny hospital in the middle of nowhere, Texas, has a very different aura from the way Quinn remembers maternity wards having.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s because it’s a different hospital. Maybe it’s because this time it’s not her in the ward.</p>
<p>It’s not right before her baby gets ripped away forever.</p>
<p>This time she notices the pastel colors the walls have been painted. Somewhere in the back of her brain she knows Lima General Hospital painted their walls pastel too; she wonders if it’s meant to be comforting – if it is comforting for other people in a way it never was for her. </p>
<p>It’s interesting, the way the dread she’s been expecting to hit her the moment she enters the ward never comes. The devastating grief she’s been waiting for since she first found out about Frannie’s baby doesn’t slap her across the face.</p>
<p>It settles deep in her heart, but it doesn’t rise up, doesn’t overwhelm her. The happiness and joy for Frannie - for the little girl Marcus had called them about just after they’d landed – takes over the grief, pushes it to the side for just a bit, long enough for Quinn to appreciate that she’s an <em>aunt. </em></p>
<p>Judy knocks softly on the door, Quinn hovering behind her. She can’t see into the room just yet, her mother’s shoulder is blocking the way, but she hears Frannie’s voice say, “Come in.”</p>
<p>She braces herself for the moment Judy moves out of the way and she gets a glimpse of the room, but she’s still taken aback by the sight.</p>
<p>Because she’s not expecting to meet Frannie’s eyes immediately, not expecting Frannie to be staring at her so intently. She looks exhausted, but there’s joy etched into her features – joy that’s mixing with apprehension as she looks at Quinn, looks at her like she’s waiting for her to run out of the room.</p>
<p>Which leads Quinn to trail her gaze down to the tiny bundle in her sister’s arms. She can’t actually see her niece – she’s wrapped up, tucked into Frannie’s chest. But she can see the outline of the baby, knows that it is a baby.</p>
<p>And once again she waits for the despair to hit her.</p>
<p>But it doesn’t.</p>
<p>She’s frozen to the spot for a moment, waiting. But when the sadness doesn’t come, she moves, taking a step forward into the room.</p>
<p>She can feel everyone’s eyes on her as she walks towards the bed – she doesn’t acknowledge them; knows they’re waiting for her to snap. She’s not going too – at least she won’t here, not in front of them.</p>
<p>Frannie moves to free an arm, gently pulling it away from her daughter, and in doing that, Quinn catches a glance of her niece’s face for the first time.</p>
<p>She’s beautiful, tiny and perfect. Even in just the second before the baby turns her head away again, Quinn can see parts of her sister in her little face – parts of Marcus too. She’s just perfect.</p>
<p>Still, Quinn’s heart doesn’t break, even as she thinks about Beth.</p>
<p>Because this isn’t Beth.</p>
<p>She’d thought Frannie’s baby would remind her of Beth – but she’s not Beth – she’s so clearly Frannie’s baby. Her niece not her daughter, and she’s just as perfect as Beth, but it doesn’t break Quinn’s heart, because Frannie’s baby was never meant to be hers.</p>
<p>Beth was hers, and then she wasn’t.</p>
<p>Frannie uses her free arm to pull Quinn into a hug, “Hi,” She says softly, “How are you?”</p>
<p>Quinn smiles, “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” She kisses Frannie on the forehead, “Congratulations. I’m so happy for you.” She notices the slight frown creasing Frannie’s eyebrows and adds, “Really, I am.”</p>
<p>Frannie’s eyes dart down to look at her daughter, and a tiny smile crosses her lips, “Thank you.”</p>
<p>“She’s beautiful.”</p>
<p>Frannie looks back up, meeting her eyes and searching for something within them. She must find it because she asks, “Would you like to hold her?”</p>
<p>Quinn nods and Frannie pats the bed next to her, urging Quinn to sit down. She does.</p>
<p>And then there’s a baby in her arms.</p>
<p>She hasn’t held a baby since Beth.</p>
<p>Beth.</p>
<p>But this isn’t Beth, this is –</p>
<p>“Eleanor,” Frannie says, “Her name is Eleanor.” She glances over at Marcus and then says, “Eleanor Lucy Johnston.”</p>
<p>It takes a few seconds for Quinn’s brain to register what’s just been said. She hears the name, but she doesn’t hear the meaning, not for a moment.</p>
<p>Then, “Oh.”</p>
<p>Tears start to well up in her eyes and it’s for none of the reasons she thought she’d cry today. She looks down at Eleanor and Eleanor turns her head to look back, a tiny arm reaching up towards her. And the name just fits. It’s as perfect as she is.</p>
<p>She looks down at this tiny girl, the girl who has been named after a part of her that no longer exists, and, in that moment, she makes a promise. A promise to Eleanor, a promise that she won’t ever let the world take the innocence of Lucy away from her.</p>
<p>Lucy was sweet and kind and perfect, even when she didn’t believe it.</p>
<p>Eleanor is all of those things and so much more. Quinn promises to make sure she never stops believing it. Never stops believing in herself.</p>
<p>Because, as Quinn’s discovered, once you stop believing, it’s hard to ever start again.</p>
<p>She presses a tiny kiss to Eleanor’s head and promises, over and over and over again.</p>
<p>They stay in Texas for five days.</p>
<p>Frannie and Eleanor come home on the third one, and Judy and Quinn help them get settled in. Judy fussing over everything, and Quinn just hovering in the background, occasionally offering to make tea, or to hold Eleanor for a few moments.</p>
<p>It’s then that the sadness starts to creep up on her, because Beth never got to come home with Quinn the way Eleanor came home with Frannie. She never got these moments with her daughter. The sleepless nights, and the morning cuddles, the fussing and fear, watching Eleanor so closely like she might just disappear.</p>
<p>She never got any of it. And it hurts.</p>
<p>Still, she puts on a brave face, she smiles around everyone, waits until she’s alone to fall apart.</p>
<p>She thinks she’s doing a good job of hiding it, but Frannie approaches her on their final day and drags her out onto the porch.</p>
<p>They sit on the swing and Frannie passes Eleanor over, tapping her nose softly as she settles into Quinn’s arms.</p>
<p>“You know,” She says, “This doesn’t change anything, I’m still here whenever you need me.”</p>
<p>Quinn shrugs, “I know.”</p>
<p>Frannie puts her hand on Quinn’s shoulder, prompting Quinn to look away from her niece and make eye contact with her sister. “Mom told me,” She says, “About your conversation.”</p>
<p><em>Oh</em>. There it is, the reason Frannie’s been looking at her like she’s about to fall apart all week. Quinn doesn’t need to ask which conversation Frannie means, because there’s only one conversation that her and Judy have had recently that her mother would have shared with Frannie.</p>
<p>“<em>Luce,</em>” Frannie says, and there’s a strain to her voice that Quinn has only ever heard once before, when she first got sick and Frannie came home.</p>
<p>“I - ” But Quinn doesn’t know what she’s trying to say, what she needs to say, so she just stays quiet.</p>
<p>“Luce,” Frannie says again, more urgently this time, “You need to stay.”</p>
<p>They both know she doesn’t mean Texas.</p>
<p>“You need to stay, okay?” Frannie repeats, “Mom needs you and I need you,” She pauses, “Eleanor needs you.” Frannie takes a deep breath, “I know it sucks, I know everything sucks and you’ve been through some shit, and I’m not going to sit here and pretend I know what any of that is like or how you’re feeling, because I don’t. But I do know that this -” She gestures to Quinn’s pink hair, “- Worries me, because last time you started to change things, you -”</p>
<p>Quinn cuts her off, “I know.” She sucks in a breath, “I know, but it’s not like that this time, I’m not trying to change myself. I just needed a change.”</p>
<p>“You wanted to die Luce,” Frannie says, not accusingly, just matter-of-factly, “Mom said you told her you wanted to die. She said you disappeared for hours in the middle of the day, came home sobbing and looking like you’d run through the woods, and told her you didn’t get the point of living anymore.” Quinn’s not looking at her, but she can hear the tears in Frannie’s voice, “So yeah, when you start to change yourself again. I’m going to get worried. I just -” She falters for a moment, “- Please talk to me. Please. Tell me when something’s wrong, let me help you.”</p>
<p>For a moment Quinn wants to tell her everything, tell her all the reasons she <em>can’t exist </em>anymore. She opens her mouth, “You know Rachel Berry?”</p>
<p>It catches Frannie off guard, “The girl from your choir, yeah?”</p>
<p>“I’m…” She stops, “I mean, I…” And then the breath leaves her chest, and she can’t say anything at all, not about Rachel, not about anything. So, she says nothing.</p>
<p>“Quinn?” Frannie asks, “What about Rachel?”</p>
<p>“I, just…” She stutters for a second, “We’re friends.”</p>
<p>Frannie frowns, “Okay?”</p>
<p>Quinn looks up at her sister, meeting her eyes properly for the first time this entire conversation, “I’m alright Frannie, I promise. I’m promise I’m okay.”</p>
<p>It’s the first time her life she’s made a promise with an intention to break it. Because while she sits here talking to her sister, there’s the lull of drowsiness in the back of her head from the pills and the stinging of her hip.</p>
<p>The two things that remind her of the plans that are not yet made. The plans that swirl around in the back of her head.</p>
<p>The plans to not stay. Because despite what Frannie says, she knows she doesn’t need her to stay. No one needs her to stay.</p>
<p>It’ll be easier without her, without the worry and the stress and the constant need to check on her. She’ll just be gone.</p>
<p>No her. No memories of the secrets she carries. No one to know that she’s –</p>
<p>Her brain cuts of the thought.</p>
<p>There’ll just be nothing.</p>
<p>And Quinn needs the nothingness.</p>
<p>She just needs it all to stop.</p>
<p>And it will, soon.</p>
<p>She just hasn’t quite decided when.</p>
<p>And that’s why she starts changing more. Because, if it’s going to all stop, she needs to something she’s always wanted to do, something she could never do before because of her fears of the way others would view her, the ways her reputation would plummet.</p>
<p>She doesn’t need to worry about her reputation anymore, she’s not very sure that people would remember anyway.</p>
<p>Last summer when she was in the psych ward, they’d spent a whole group session talking about signs to look out for in other people, signs that might mean they’ve decided to stop existing.</p>
<p>One of the signs they’d focused on was sudden closeness – a newfound willingness to spend more time with close family and friends, giving gifts and almost apologizing for what they’re going to do before they do it.</p>
<p>Quinn goes the opposite direction. She pushes people away. Pushes them away more than normal.</p>
<p>Just like last summer, Brittany shows up on her doorstep with an invitation to Santana’s birthday party. She waits until Brittany leaves and she throws it in the bin. She <em>can’t</em> she just <em>can’t</em>. Because deep down she knows they’ll know – or at least, Santana will know, Santana always knows, and Santana will pry, and Santana will try to stop her.</p>
<p>And she’s just too tired. Too tired to fight back.</p>
<p>She’s been trying for so long to get better, to be better, to live and to grow and to <em>become</em>. To move on from her past.</p>
<p>But her past keeps catching up, and she can’t run anymore, can’t be any better. She can only be her. And she hates being her.</p>
<p>She just needs it to stop.</p>
<p>So, she pushes everyone away to stop them from stopping her.</p>
<p>And that’s how she ends up outside the service station off the highway one afternoon in the middle of July.</p>
<p>She’s hiding, because she knows Santana will show up at her house to ask why she didn’t come to her party, and she doesn’t want to face her.</p>
<p>The sun is scorching and blinding her slightly as she sits on the hood of her car in the parking lot. She doesn’t move, accepting the sunburn she knows is forming, accepting that tonight her face will match her hair.</p>
<p>She closes her eyes, the drowsiness from the pills catching up to her for a moment, making her feel woozy. She clamps her eyes tight, waiting for it to pass, wondering if she should get up and buy a soda from the gas station.</p>
<p>Then there’s something blocking the sun. She frowns, blinking her eyes open and squinting up. It’s a person, and for a second, she panics thinking that Santana has found her, the sun behind them casting their face in shadows, making it impossible to make out features.</p>
<p>She blinks slowly, trying to get her eyes to focus on the face. She pushes her upright, moving so the sun isn’t directly behind the person.</p>
<p>It’s not Santana at all. It’s a man. The sight doesn’t make the panic go away, in fact it flares up inside her, and she sits up straighter, fighting the urge to look around for something to defend herself with.</p>
<p>He smirks, upper lip curling, “Hey Darlin’,” He drawls, “Watcha doing out here all alone?”</p>
<p>Quinn slides her keys in between her fingers, clenching them into a fist, getting ready to swing if she needs to. “I -”</p>
<p>“Hey!” A voice behind her shouts, “James, leave her alone.”</p>
<p>The man scowls, and Quinn turns around to look at who yelled. She’s relieved to see it’s another girl, around her age, and what’s better is that James seems to be listening to her – he’s taken a few steps back.</p>
<p>The girl, Quinn realizes, looks vaguely familiar, and she can place her at McKinley somewhere deep in the back of her brain. She falters on a name though, staring at the girl, who’s staring right back.</p>
<p>“Seriously James,” She tears her eyes away from Quinn’s, “Fuck off.”</p>
<p>James grumbles something about, “Just having a bit of fun,” but sulks off, heading towards the line of eighteen wheelers parked along the side of the rest stop.</p>
<p>The girl turns back to her and keeps staring.</p>
<p>Quinn doesn’t quite know what to say, so she settles with, “Thanks.”  </p>
<p>“Quinn Fabray.” Is all she says.</p>
<p>Quinn laughs nervously, “Ah, yeah…”</p>
<p>“Not usually your scene?”</p>
<p>Quinn shrugs, “No. I’m just -” She stops before she says too much, “- Avoiding someone.”</p>
<p>The girl shrugs back, “Fair.” She holds out her hand, “I’m Mackenzie Thomson, but you can call me The Mack.”</p>
<p>Suddenly it falls into place, “Oh you’re…” <em>A Skank </em>goes unsaid.</p>
<p>The Mack smiles, “That’s right.”</p>
<p>Quinn slides off the hood of her car, taking The Mack’s outstretched hand, “It’s nice to meet you.”</p>
<p>“Is it?”</p>
<p>It appears to be a genuine question, like The Mack can’t quite tell if Quinn is being sincere or not. She nods, “It is. You, um, got that guy to go away, so thank you.”</p>
<p>“You’re welcome.” The Mack nods, “James is harmless, but a bit too forward. Plus -” She winks, “I don’t think he’s really your type.”</p>
<p>Quinn’s heart drops into her stomach, because there’s no way this girl could <em>know</em>, could she? Is it obvious, can <em>everyone</em> tell? Her hands play with the ends of her hair nervously, and maybe the pink was a bad idea, because <em>shit</em>.</p>
<p>“You know,” The Mack continues, “You’re more into footballers?”</p>
<p>“Oh,” Quinn lets out a breathy laugh, “Yeah… footballers…”</p>
<p>The Mack’s gaze trails to Quinn’s fingers, still tangled in her hair, “Then again, you’re full of surprises today.” She gestures to the pink.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Quinn says, heart still pounding. She shakes her head, “Just needed a change, I guess.”</p>
<p>The Mack nods again, and then gestures for Quinn to follow, “Come on.”</p>
<p>Quinn stumbles over her own feet, but follows anyway. The Mack glances over her shoulder, seemingly shocked that Quinn actually did what she said. Quinn’s slightly shocked too – Old Quinn wouldn’t have done this, followed a virtual stranger in the middle of nowhere off a freeway.</p>
<p>But right now, her body isn’t really listening to her brain, so she walks behind The Mack as she leads her behind the service station and into the edges of the trees. Quinn falters for a second as her limbs finally catch up to the signals being sent to them.</p>
<p>The Mack turns around and winks, “I’m not going to kill you, Fabray.”</p>
<p>Quinn isn’t sure she believes her, but she keeps following her anyway.</p>
<p>It turns out she was telling the truth, or at least partially, because she just stops in the tree line and offers Quinn a cigarette – which Quinn supposed could potentially be seen as an attempt to kill her.</p>
<p>“Oh,” Quinn looks at the box The Mack holds out, “I don’t -”</p>
<p>The Mack shrugs, “Okay, I’m not going to force you.”</p>
<p>Quinn stares at the box for a few moments. Her Dad used to say smoking helped him relax – <em>God</em>, why is she thinking about Russel right now. She shakes her head, trying to free her brain of the thought.</p>
<p>It’s that that makes her grab the cigarette, because God forbid Russell Fabray ever saw with one between her teeth. If he hadn’t have already kicked her out, he would have done it at the sight of this.  </p>
<p>It hits her in that moment that if Russell could see her right now he’d probably have an aneurysm at how <em>unladylike</em> she was being. The pink hair; the jeans; the cigarette; the ditching a party to sit in a parking lot.</p>
<p>It makes a tiny moment of joy jolt through her, a step further away from the boundaries he created – the box he put her into.</p>
<p>The Mack lights the cigarette, demonstrating to Quinn how to breathe in the smoke without choking.</p>
<p>Quinn chokes anyway.</p>
<p>She hates it. But in a strange way it feels like suffocating, and she thinks she likes that feeling.</p>
<p>The moment the cigarette touched her lips she was reminded of ever warning she’d ever been told about not touching them, about how they’d kill her, horribly and painfully.</p>
<p>Lucy had been scared of that.</p>
<p>Quinn just craves the pain. The reminder, just like the sleeping pills, that soon there will be nothing.</p>
<p>And if there’ll be nothing, she doesn’t need to worry about a few cigarettes.</p>
<p>So, she has another, and another.</p>
<p>At some point two other girls – Ronnie and Sheila – show up, but they don’t question her presence, they just sit down, and start chatting with The Mack like she’s not even there.</p>
<p>She likes the Skanks, Quinn decides. They don’t ask questions; they won’t look too hard.</p>
<p>They won’t try to make her stay.</p>
<p>She gets up to leave as the sun starts to set. The Mack grabs her arm as she goes to walk away, “Quinn.”</p>
<p>Quinn turns to look at her, “Yeah?”</p>
<p>“We’re here every day if you want to come back,” She smiles, and pats Quinn’s shoulder awkwardly, “You seem like you could use it.”</p>
<p>“Thanks,” Quinn shrugs, unsure if she wants to make a return.</p>
<p>“It’s just,” The Mack shifts, “I get it. I’ve heard some of the rumors about you, I don’t know if they’re true, but I know what it’s like to want to run from some kind of reputation…”</p>
<p>Quinn raises her eyebrows, asking a question without words.</p>
<p>The Mack sighs, “The Mack isn’t just a dumb nickname… I told you my name is Mackenzie, everyone’s always called me Mack. Some boys in eighth grade made up a dumb rumor that I went by Mack because I made out with guys at the truck stop,” She grins, “You know, like, Mack Trucks… The nickname stuck, and now everyone thinks I’m some kind of slut.”</p>
<p>She laughs, but Quinn doesn’t think it’s very funny, “I’m sorry.” She says sincerely.</p>
<p>“It is what it is,” Mack shrugs, “But, I get what you’re going through - everyone seems to think you’re a slut too, because of the whole Puckerman thing.”</p>
<p>Quinn meets Mack’s eyes, “I didn’t have a lot of choice in ‘The whole Puckerman thing’.” It comes out a lot harsher than she expects and she watches Mack’s eyes harden, growing darker.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Mack apologizes this time.</p>
<p>Quinn shrugs, “It is what it is.”</p>
<p>The phrase makes her smile, she doesn’t really know why.</p>
<p>“The offer stands,” Mack holds her hand out for Quinn to shake, “You can come back anytime, if you want.”</p>
<p>Quinn takes her hand, “Thanks.”</p>
<p>She drives home slowly.</p>
<p>The Skanks don’t ask questions.</p>
<p>They won’t ask her stay.</p>
<p>She can just be, just for a bit.</p>
<p>Santana’s waiting on her doorstep when she gets home, she looks mad.</p>
<p>“Quinn,” She says.</p>
<p>Quinn just walks past her and shuts the door in her face.</p>
<p>She can’t deal with the questions, with the people who will beg her to stay, to try.</p>
<p>She goes back to the Skanks the next day, and the day after that.</p>
<p>She pushes away everyone else.</p>
<p>She can’t deal with <em>that</em>, with them.  </p>
<p>She wakes up one day in late August, her seventeenth birthday, with an odd calmness that’s never existed on her birthday before.</p>
<p>When she was little there was excitement on her birthday, as she got older that excitement turned to fear – fear of Russell, fear of growing up, fear of the world around her.</p>
<p>This year there’s only peace. A calmness.</p>
<p>A feeling she can’t quite place, can’t quite find a reason for.</p>
<p>She’s sure it’s almost noon. A side effect of the pills. She wakes up around midday most days.</p>
<p>She wonders for a brief moment if Judy’s noticed she sleeps half the day away every day, or if she believes Quinn gets up shortly after she leaves for work each day.</p>
<p>She forces her eyes open. It seems brighter in her room than it does every other day, like the sun is hanging lower in the sky.</p>
<p>She glances at her clock.</p>
<p>Nine am.</p>
<p>Earlier than she’s woken all summer.</p>
<p>She shuts her eyes again, confused as to why she was dragged out of sleep so much earlier than usual, the exhaustion brought on by the pills still deep within her, pulling her back into sleep, lulling her back into a half-asleep daze.</p>
<p>The banging downstairs a few seconds later makes her sit bolt upright. She grabs her head, the motion causing her brain to feel like it’s flopping around in her skull. She forces her eyes open, and her vision blurs, her body not used to the sudden movements, the earlier waking.</p>
<p>There’s another bang.</p>
<p>She tries to shake the dizziness out of her brain, tries to pull herself out of bed to work out what the banging is. Her limbs don’t cooperate, they feel like lead, her eyes shut again, involuntarily, and she flops back down onto the pillow.</p>
<p>From downstairs she hears one final, <em>thump.</em></p>
<p>Then her phone rings.</p>
<p>The noise is shrill and jarring and she groans. Her hand fumbles blindly on her nightstand, trying to find the phone and shut off the sound so it stops reverberating around her skull. Her fist closes around it, and she pulls it to her ear, not opening her eyes as she answers.</p>
<p>“Hello?” She’s vaguely aware that her voice is raspy and quiet, but she’s already drifting back to sleep, too lost in the haze to care.</p>
<p><em>“Quinn? Sorry, were you sleeping?” </em>A voice cuts loudly through the haze.</p>
<p>She jerks back awake, because, <em>shit</em>, she knows that voice. <em>Rachel. </em></p>
<p>
  <em>Shit. </em>
</p>
<p><em>“Quinn?” </em>Rachel asks again.</p>
<p>Quinn swallows, trying to get her mouth to work properly, “Yeah, I’m here.”</p>
<p>
  <em>“Sorry I didn’t mean to wake you.” </em>
</p>
<p>“It’s okay,” It’s not, she feels like she’s been hit by a truck, but it’s Rachel. And at this point she’s certain she’d do anything for Rachel.</p>
<p><em>“I thought your Mom would have woken you up before she left, sorry.” </em>Rachel’s rambling now, <em>“I didn’t think about the fact you might still be asleep… Sorry,” </em>She apologizes again, <em>“It’s early, I’ll go.”</em></p>
<p>“Go?” Quinn asks, unsure about where Rachel is.</p>
<p><em>“Oh, yeah,”</em> Rachel pauses, and Quinn imagines her biting her lip and then quickly shakes the thought out of her head. <em>“I’m downstairs,”</em> Rachel continues, <em>“I knocked, but no one answered so I called to check you were home.” </em></p>
<p>“Oh.”</p>
<p>
  <em>“It’s okay, I’ll just go. Sorry to wake you… Happy Birthday, Quinn.” </em>
</p>
<p>“No!” Quinn practically shouts, her limbs protesting as she jumps out of bed, swaying on her feet, “I’ll be down, give me one sec.” She hangs up before Rachel can answer.</p>
<p><em>Shit</em>, because now she’s agreed to let Rachel in, and she’s agreed to let her in right now. She catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror and <em>God</em> she looks awful.</p>
<p>Her hair is sticking up, and Rachel’s never even seen it pink before, and she’s wearing nothing but an old, oversized t-shirt that she’s pretty sure belonged to Lucy, something that makes her feel physically sick – which is probably an issue but she can’t deal with that right now – and overall, she just looks awful, she knows she looks awful.</p>
<p>She really doesn’t want Rachel to see her like this. But she already agreed.</p>
<p>
  <em>Shit. </em>
</p>
<p>She runs her fingers through her hair, trying to tame it slightly as she walks – well, more like wobbles, because her legs feel like jelly and she holds onto the bannister like a lifeline and prays she doesn’t fall, because if she falls, Rachel will definitely ask questions.</p>
<p>She makes it to the door and then she stops. She sucks in a breath, bracing herself to see Rachel, and swings it open.</p>
<p>The bracing doesn’t work, because her eyes land on Rachel and her legs feel like they’re going to give out. She clutches the door handle to hold herself up, and tries to put on a smile that doesn’t look pained.</p>
<p>There’s a part of her that thinks she falls a bit more in love with Rachel every time she sees her. Because even though she’s spent more time than she’d like to admit looking at Rachel – even before she knew why she was looking – it feels like every time she sees her, she notices something new.</p>
<p>Today it’s the way Rachel’s eyebrows rise slightly in shock as Quinn opens the door, the barely there look of surprise on her face – the surprise that she wipes away in a second, replacing it with a warm smile. It’s a genuine smile, it lights up her eyes and she grins at Quinn from the other side of the doorstep.</p>
<p>Quinn’s heart flutters, “Hey,” She says, slightly breathless.</p>
<p>“Hey,” Rachel’s smile somehow widens even more, “Happy Birthday.”</p>
<p>“Thanks,” She says softly, letting go of the door handle to gesture to Rachel to come in.</p>
<p>What she doesn’t expect is Rachel wrapping her arms around her neck and pulling her into a tight hug. The air disappears from her lungs at the feeling of her arms touching her, her fingertips lingering on her back and making Quinn shiver.</p>
<p>She’s too shocked to move, and Rachel pulls back quickly. Quinn shuts the door behind her and awkwardly nods her head to the kitchen. Rachel follows her.</p>
<p>“Sorry, again,” Rachel says, “For waking you up.”</p>
<p>Quinn shrugs.</p>
<p>“I just thought you’d be up,” Rachel frowns, “You seem like a morning person, but I should have checked… Sorry.”</p>
<p>Quinn’s lips curl into a smile at the apology, “It’s okay, really.” She pulls out a chair for Rachel at the kitchen bench and then asks, “Do you want something to eat.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” Rachel shakes her head, “No, it’s okay, I ate already. But you have something if you want, I don’t mind.”</p>
<p>Quinn grabs an apple, mostly because she knows Rachel <em>knows</em> and she doesn’t want her to worry. Not more than she apparently already is, because there’s worry etched into the lines of her forehead.</p>
<p>Quinn has an urge to smooth the creases away with her fingertips.</p>
<p>She resists.</p>
<p>Rachel opens her mouth, “Quinn?”</p>
<p>“Hmm?” Quinn takes a bite.</p>
<p>“Are you okay.”</p>
<p>Quinn stops mid-chew, “Yeah.” She shifts from foot to foot.</p>
<p>“You just look…” Rachel trails off, “I just mean, you can talk to me, if you need.”</p>
<p>She nods, “Thanks.”</p>
<p>There’s a moment of awkward silence, Quinn moves her gaze down, attempting to appear intrigued by the apple in her hand instead of meeting Rachel’s eyes. She can feel Rachel watching her, trailing her gaze over Quinn, taking her in.</p>
<p>Quinn feels her face heating up and hastily turns around to throw the apple core in the bin, willing her heart to stop jumping around in her chest.</p>
<p>“So,” Rachel says, “I got you something.”</p>
<p>Quinn pauses, turning around, “You didn’t have too,” She says automatically.</p>
<p>“I know,” Rachel smiles, “I wanted too.” She hesitates, and this time she actually <em>does </em>bite her lip, and Quinn <em>melts.</em> Rachel continues, her teeth toying with her lip, “I just – I know there’s been… You’ve been through some… Stuff,” She stops again, her nose scrunching - Quinn grabs onto the counter to stop herself falling over – Rachel looks into her eyes, very deliberately, “You’re better than you know; braver than you know. I got you something to remind you of that.”</p>
<p>Her face is serious as she reaches into her bag and pulls out a small box passing it to Quinn. Quinn takes it, her hand trembling slightly, “Thank you.”</p>
<p>She unwraps it slowly, not wanting to ruin the careful work Rachel seems to have put into the ribbon and paper choice. She lifts the lid off the box, revealing a small stone, she stares at it for a moment, the word ‘<em>hope’</em> etched into the rock staring back.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Rachel says, “It’s kind of dumb. I just thought you might need a reminder, that there’s hope, I mean. Always.”</p>
<p>Quinn can’t speak, can’t open her mouth or she’ll start crying. She looks at Rachel, looks deeply into her eyes and pulls her into a tight hug. “Thank you,” She says once her face is out of Rachel’s views and she can’t see the tears welling up in her eyes, “Thank you.”</p>
<p>She feels Rachel smile into her shoulder as she says, “You’re welcome.”</p>
<p>It may just be a rock, a tiny stone. But the meaning behind it is everything.</p>
<p>It was from Rachel.</p>
<p>Rachel thought of her.</p>
<p>Really thought <em>about </em>her.</p>
<p>None of the other gifts she receives touch her quite as deeply. Her mother gets her a necklace, a new cross, which Quinn puts on for about five seconds before she starts feeling it burn.</p>
<p>Not actually, but the weight of her secrets – her sins – weigh it down until it feels hot and heavy against her throat and she can’t breathe.</p>
<p>The Skanks – well Mack specifically – get her a fake ID. She assumes they expect her to use it for alcohol or cigarettes, but she has something else in mind.</p>
<p>It’s something that’s been playing on her brain for months, and the ability to do it gets placed right into the palm of her hands.</p>
<p>So, the day after her seventeenth birthday, she walks into a tattoo studio and asks for a singular word at the base of spine.</p>
<p>The placement is somewhat symbolic. Out of her sight, but not out of her mind. She’ll always know it’s there even when she can’t see it.</p>
<p>It hurts, but not as much as the meaning of the word. And when the tattoo artist pulls back and lets her look in the mirror, she bursts into tears at the sight of it.</p>
<p>
  <em>Beth. </em>
</p>
<p>Tiny, gentle cursive.</p>
<p>Small and perfect. Just like her little girl.</p>
<p>Well, she might not be small anymore. Quinn doesn’t know.</p>
<p>But she’s still perfect.</p>
<p>Nothing can ever ruin how perfect Beth is.</p>
<p>But, then the tattoo is there; the tattoo is there, and Beth’s name is there and it hurts, <em>God </em>it hurts so much, a constant physical reminder.</p>
<p>More than just existing, just being is a constant physical reminder and Quinn <em>can’t</em>.</p>
<p>She sits in front of her mirror and stares at the tattoo, stares and stares and stares until her eyes burns and there’s crescent shaped marks on her thighs from her fingernails digging in.</p>
<p>And all she wants to do is to scratch the tattoo off because it <em>hurts </em>so, so much.</p>
<p>So, she goes to a different artist two days later and begs him to cover it up.</p>
<p>She doesn’t even know if it’s safe to cover up a tattoo that fresh, but he looks at her, and then at the tattoo and asks her want she wants.</p>
<p>She picks the stupidest thing she can think of, the furthest thing from Beth, just so she doesn’t need to look at it and be reminded of her daughter.</p>
<p>No, not hers.</p>
<p>Beth isn’t hers.</p>
<p>And that’s why it hurts so much.</p>
<p>But then she’s staring at Ryan Secrest’s face instead of Beth’s name and that hurts too.</p>
<p>So, she stares, and she stares.</p>
<p>Until she feels nothing but shame because she covered Beth up just like she gave Beth away.</p>
<p>And the shame and guilt make her throw up more than she has in years.</p>
<p>And then she sits there and cries.</p>
<p>Because Beth is beautiful and perfect, and she came from something so horrible and Quinn just wants to hold her and protect her from everything horrible.</p>
<p>Because Quinn got something ripped away from her on <em>that </em>night.</p>
<p>And she never wants that to happen to Beth too.</p>
<p>And suddenly it falls into place. The plan she hasn’t made. It’s almost an unconscious decision, the day she chooses, the way she chooses.</p>
<p>In the end it makes perfect sense. Because two years before on <em>that </em>day, the last bit of goodness was taken away from her, her last piece of Lucy was ripped away from her without her consent. Two years ago, on <em>that</em> night she went numb, and she’d never really regained feeling, not properly.</p>
<p>Part of her thinks it’s selfish to pick the day Beth came to be as the day to make it all stop. Because Beth is the only good thing she has.</p>
<p>But Beth isn’t hers, Beth won’t know. Beth won’t know the significance of that day. Even if Beth grows up and somehow knows who she is, if Shelby tells Beth who she is, Beth won’t know why <em>that</em> was the day she chose to stop. If Beth knows she chose at all – she thinks it might be better if Beth never knows she did it to herself.  </p>
<p>But <em>he </em>will know. He’ll know, and maybe it’s a horrible thing to think, but he’ll know, and she hopes that knowledge will haunt him forever. Because he knew what he was doing, knew it and he did it anyway, and maybe she’s accepted that, accepted that she can’t change what happened.</p>
<p>But it doesn’t mean she’ll ever forgive him for it.</p>
<p>Because of all the moments, all the awful moments that have happened - Lucy, her Dad, Beth - his breath in her ear is the one she can never shake from her brain, it’s the one that plays over and over and over again until she can’t hear anything else except his breathing next her ear.</p>
<p>So maybe it’s selfish to pick that day, maybe she’s a horrible person for picking that day. But she has to live with the constant reminder of what he did. She wants him to live with it too.</p>
<p>She hates herself for it, hates herself more than anything for it. Hates that she’s selfish even in doing <em>this</em>.</p>
<p>But she’s so tired of fighting with herself.</p>
<p>She needs it to stop.</p>
<p>And <em>that</em> day is as good as any.</p>
<p>On <em>that </em>day it will stop.</p>
<p>Finally.</p>
<p>Except this year, <em>that</em> day falls just outside summer vacation. Falls one week after school starts up again.</p>
<p>And Quinn needs to somehow see them all and not have them notice what she’s doing, not have them try to stop her.</p>
<p>So, she avoids.</p>
<p>She doesn’t go to her classes – it’s not like she really needs them anymore anyway.</p>
<p>She quits Cheerios, gives her uniform back to Coach Sue, offering no explanation other than, “<em>I can’t.”</em></p>
<p>She deliberately doesn’t show up to glee club, because that’s where they all are. That’s where <em>she </em>is. And Quinn can’t face her.</p>
<p>She finds her anyway. Of course, she does.</p>
<p>Quinn’s under the bleachers with the Skanks who don’t ask questions and won’t ask her to stay. She hears <em>her </em>voice, and she freezes.</p>
<p>She knows she has to look at her, has to get through this conversation.</p>
<p>But she doesn’t want to.</p>
<p>Because of all people, if Rachel asks her to stay, just once, she won’t be able to say no.</p>
<p>She turns around, and the sight of Rachel swallows her whole. Her heart cracks in half all over again and she waits, thinking she might crumple, collapse onto the floor. The tapestry of her heart ripping completely in half.</p>
<p>She doesn’t.</p>
<p>But Rachel is in front of her, and Rachel is perfect, and she’s <em>in love </em>with Rachel.</p>
<p>But she can’t be.</p>
<p>She won’t be.</p>
<p>Not soon.</p>
<p>Soon she won’t be anything.</p>
<p>Rachel stands there and looks into her eyes and begs her to come back to glee club.</p>
<p>With every word Quinn breaks some more. Rachel’s looking at her with those wide, perfect eyes, and Quinn breaks. She stares into Rachel’s eyes, taking in the warmth in them, taking in the shape of her face, the curve of her nose, the line of her jaw, the way her hair falls over her shoulders, the way she talks with her hands – always – the way she says everything with such sincerity, deeply and truly meaning ever single word.</p>
<p>Quinn takes it all in. One last time. She lets herself look one last time. Lets herself break and doesn’t even try to sew herself back together. Lets the fraying threads finally snap and start to unravel. Lets the pieces of herself slowly fall apart.</p>
<p>She’s looked, just one last time.</p>
<p>No one will ever know what it means.</p>
<p>She’s ready.</p>
<p>She pulls herself out of bed on Monday morning, pulling herself away from the lull of sleep, away from the peace the sleeping pills bring her, the emptiness.</p>
<p>Except today there’s a peace in waking too. Because she knows it’s the last time. Knows soon there will only be the emptiness she craves so much.</p>
<p>She takes some extra time that morning, staring at herself in the mirror. She doesn’t recognize the face she sees. It’s her, but it’s not. Not really, the outside doesn’t reflect everything swirling around on the inside.</p>
<p>It’s earlier, so much earlier than she’d usually wake.</p>
<p>But she has something she needs to do first.</p>
<p>The streets are empty as she drives, pulling up in front of the old Baptist Church on the very outskirts of Lima.</p>
<p>She’s not Baptist, never has been, but this is the only Church she knows will be empty.</p>
<p>And right now, she just needs a God who will listen.</p>
<p>She pulls into the parking lot.</p>
<p>She sits in the Pews. She’s alone, just like she thought she would be.</p>
<p>She’s worn her new cross necklace today, ignoring the burning sensation in her throat at the weight of it. She grabs onto it and bows her head.</p>
<p>She doesn’t really have a speech planned out, no exact words to say to God.</p>
<p>Just an ask. An ask of forgiveness, a prayer to please just let her do this without interruption.</p>
<p>To let her stop without any fighting back.</p>
<p>She just prays that for all of her sins, there’s some side of God - the one she was raised to believe in; the God who controls everything, who makes the decisions – that can let her go with peace.</p>
<p>Even if he’s letting her go to hell.</p>
<p>She’s accepted that she might end up there.</p>
<p>She thinks perhaps that eternal pain will be better than <em>this</em> eternal pain.</p>
<p>Even if it’s worse, she’d rather be focused on physical pain than the awful, painful nothingness of her brain.</p>
<p>She notices things on her drive home, taking in the color of the world, the look of the sunrise, the orange breaking over the horizon – the first stirrings as the world comes to life.</p>
<p>A world she won’t be a part of soon.</p>
<p>But the world will keep going, even when she stops.</p>
<p>There will still be a sunrise, still be a sunset.</p>
<p>There just won’t be her.</p>
<p>It’s comforting in a strange way.   </p>
<p>She’s reminded again of the conversation in the psych ward last summer, about gifts and closeness. She ticks people off in her mind. She has no gifts, but she does have a few goodbyes.</p>
<p>Beth – Beth was the first goodbye, she said goodbye to over a year ago, the day she handed her to Shelby.</p>
<p>Her Mom is second on the list.</p>
<p>She gets home before she wakes up, sneaking back up the stairs and into her room before Judy even knows she’s gone.</p>
<p>Judy’s in the kitchen making breakfast when she comes down the stairs.</p>
<p>“Morning,” She says.</p>
<p>Judy smiles, “Morning.” She glances down at the food, “I made eggs, you want some?”</p>
<p>Quinn nods.</p>
<p>They eat in silence. It’s comforting. Less things to apologize for.</p>
<p>Then, “Mom?”</p>
<p>“Yes sweetheart?”</p>
<p>Quinn sighs, “Thank you.”</p>
<p>“For what?”</p>
<p>“Breakfast,” Quinn pauses, “And everything.”</p>
<p>Judy smiles again, “You’re welcome.”</p>
<p>“I love you, Mom, even if I don’t say it enough.”</p>
<p>Her mother’s smile grows, “I love you too, Quinnie,” She grabs Quinn’s hand giving it a squeeze, “Now come on, you need to get to school or you’ll be late.”</p>
<p>Judy’s at the sink, facing the dishes when Quinn comes back down the stairs with her school bag, “Bye, Mom.”</p>
<p>Judy calls back without even looking up, “Have a good day, darling. I’ll see you tonight.”</p>
<p>She won’t.</p>
<p>Quinn doesn’t say that.</p>
<p>The next person is Frannie.</p>
<p>Quinn wants to keep it quick and simple.</p>
<p>She doesn’t want to give Frannie a chance to ask her to stay.</p>
<p>She holds the phone to her ear.</p>
<p>Frannie picks up on the third ring, “<em>Hello?”</em></p>
<p>“Hey Frannie,” She says, surprised at how level her voice is.</p>
<p><em>‘Lucy?” </em>Frannie asks, <em>“Are you okay?”</em></p>
<p>“Yeah, I’m fine.”</p>
<p>It’s the truth, she’ll be fine soon.</p>
<p>
  <em>“Why are you calling on a Monday morning? Shouldn’t you be at school? Are you sure you’re alright?”</em>
</p>
<p>“I’m fine Frannie, I promise. I just wanted to check in on you and Eleanor, you said she’d been sleeping better.”</p>
<p>
  <em>“Yeah, she has, we just woke up, actually.” </em>
</p>
<p>“That’s good,” She pauses, “I just wanted you to know that I love you.”</p>
<p>
  <em>“I love you too, Luce. You promise you’re alright?”</em>
</p>
<p>“I promise.” Another broken promise, “Tell Eleanor I love her.”</p>
<p>
  <em>“I will.”</em>
</p>
<p>“Bye, Frannie.”</p>
<p>
  <em>“Bye Lucy, we’ll talk soon, okay?”</em>
</p>
<p>They won’t.</p>
<p>Again, Quinn doesn’t say that, she just hangs up.</p>
<p>Santana and Brittany.</p>
<p>She can’t face them. Not without them knowing. She knows they’ll know the moment they see her.</p>
<p>She has a note written for them – the only note she’s written, she took the time the night before to explain, at least a little bit - that she’ll slip into Brittany’s locker before she leaves school that day.</p>
<p>Leaves for the last time.</p>
<p>She knows Brittany doesn’t check her locker in the afternoons, no one will find it till tomorrow.</p>
<p>For her, there is no tomorrow.</p>
<p>Just today.</p>
<p>She moves down the list in her head.</p>
<p>Mercedes.</p>
<p>She leaves homemade cookies in her locker before school starts, knowing Mercedes will know they’re from her – they’re chocolate macadamia, the kind they made together every Saturday when they lived together.</p>
<p>She just hopes Mercedes doesn’t question why.</p>
<p>There’s only one more person on her list.</p>
<p>Rachel.</p>
<p>She finds her by her locker after fifth period. “Hey, Rachel.”</p>
<p>Rachel looks up as she approaches, looking taken aback that she’s speaking to her at school “Oh, hi Quinn. What’s up?”</p>
<p>Quinn shuffles back and forth, shifting from one foot to the other. She’s planned what she needs to say, and yet somehow the words won’t come out quite right in the moment.</p>
<p>“Quinn?”</p>
<p>“Hmm… Oh, umm,” Quinn pauses, taking a breath, “I just wanted to thank you.”</p>
<p>Rachel frowns, “What for?”</p>
<p>“For always being you.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” Rachel stops, frowning again, “What does that mean?”</p>
<p>Quinn doesn’t clarify, just pulls something out of her pocket and places it in Rachel’s palm, and continues with, “I’m sorry, again. For everything. But just – thank you, you’ve helped more than you know. I - ”</p>
<p>She doesn’t finish the sentence, just leaves Rachel alone at her locker. Leaves before she says the three words that will ruin everything.</p>
<p>Leaves Rachel alone with the small stone she’d given her. The word <em>hope </em>pressed against the skin of her palm.</p>
<p>She leaves Rachel, and then she walks down the corridor to leave school.</p>
<p>To go home to her empty house.</p>
<p>To the four bottles of sleeping pills sitting inside her bathroom cupboard.</p>
<p>To the end of it all.</p>
<p>To the nothingness she craves so much.</p>
<p>She counts her steps, just like she did on the side of the road a few months ago.</p>
<p>Almost at the door.</p>
<p>Ten.</p>
<p>Nine.</p>
<p>Eight.</p>
<p>Seven.</p>
<p>Six.</p>
<p>Five.</p>
<p>Four.</p>
<p>Three.</p>
<p>Two.</p>
<p>She reaches her arm out to push the door –</p>
<p>“Quinn?” A voice calls.</p>
<p>She wants to ignore it. To keep walking out the door. To go home.</p>
<p>To stop.</p>
<p>But she recognizes that voice. And she freezes.</p>
<p>And she turns around.</p>
<p>And comes face to face with Shelby Corcoran standing at the other end of the corridor.</p>
<p>At seventeen, she’s Quinn Fabray</p>
<p>She has a Mom and a sister.</p>
<p>She’s not a good Christian girl, because there’s no such thing.</p>
<p>She knows you don’t have to follow God to be a good person.</p>
<p>She knows her father doesn’t love her.</p>
<p>She’s not perfect.</p>
<p>She’s still sick, but she’s getting better.</p>
<p>She got hurt, people know, people are helping.</p>
<p>She got out, but she came back.</p>
<p>She has a daughter, but she’s not a mother.</p>
<p>She’s in love with Rachel Berry.</p>
<p>She knows what that implies about herself.</p>
<p>She’s an aunt.</p>
<p>She’s going to stop existing.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>If you'd like to listen to the playlist I listened to while writing this:<br/>https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3OEvdk9H26Gm4eaybONznB?si=vdtp9YTaRbihNmlQYakEGw</p>
<p>Please leave kudos/comment your thoughts I greatly appreciate it!!</p>
<p>Follow me on twitter @quinnsclayton I occasionally give updates on my writing progress. </p>
<p>Until next time.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If you'd like to listen to the playlist I listened to while writing this:<br/>https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3OEvdk9H26Gm4eaybONznB?si=vdtp9YTaRbihNmlQYakEGw</p><p>Please leave kudos/comment your thoughts I greatly appreciate it!!</p><p>Until next time.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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